1. Optical Music Recognition
with Python
Andrew Hankinson

2. Optical Music Recogntion
is
Optical Character Recognition
for Music Notation
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3. Building “Google Books”
for music notation
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4. Our Task:
Tell a computer how to
understand music notation
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5. Our Task:
Teach a computer how to
understand music notation
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6. time
pitch
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7. time
pitch
clefs durations articulations
barlines key signature
dynamics (“loudness”)
implicit knowledge
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8. 6

9. 6

10. Neume Notation
Liturgical Use
~1100 to 1600 CE
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11. Gamera
Python/C++ Framework for
document image analysis and
shape recognition
(not just for music...)
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12. Tasks...
❖ Binarisation: Colour -> Black & White
❖ Staff Removal: Removing connected components
❖ Shapeidentification: Automatically classifying
shapes
❖ Correction: Fixing machine errors
❖ Exporting: Encoding recognized music notation
in XML
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13. Demo
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14. 11

15. Recap
❖ “Clean up” images -- binarization, etc.
❖ Remove staff lines
❖ Connected component analysis
❖ Classify shapes
❖ Recombine with staff lines for pitch finding
❖ Save image + musical data to a musical
representation format (e.g., the Music Encoding
Initiative XML schema)
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16. Thank you.
github.com/DDMAL
github.com/ahankinson
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