Klarinet Archive - Posting 000331.txt from 1996/11

From: Oliver Seely <oliver@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Would you like to help ...
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:18:29 -0500

Mark,
I'm all in favor of making public domain sheet music available to all
comers. Here is the process you have described, from my perspective.
It just seems to me that we ought to put our thinking caps on and figure
out a way to simplify things:

I scan a copyrighted piece of sheet music by some composer
long dead ---> I clean things up with MIDISCAN and create a MIDI file --->
I import the MIDI file to Finale, create a .MUS file and clean things up
again --->
I assign instruments and create a new superclean MIDI file from the .MUS file
----> I upload .MUS and MIDI files to my Web page --->
I print public domain sheet music
or, alternatively, someone downloads one of my .MUS files and uses Finale
to print it as (now) public domain sheet music ---> public domain sheet music
is sent to Mark for scanning ---> Mark creates .GIF or .JPG files and
puts them on his server.

All of my original .TIF files are from copyrighted sources,
so my "emergency Fair Use copy for educational purposes only" is
erased after I have created the public domain .MUS file (it is of no use
to me anyway). In any case, for the project you are describing we must use
a sheet music presentation which is in the public domain.

The big bottleneck as I see it occurs because .MUS files are not
universal enough that freeware or shareware to convert them is floating
around the net -- unless someone on KLARINET knows where one might
find it. I was going to look last night to see what exportable file formats
(other than music software specific ETF files)
are used by Finale. I know that it produces Post Script files, but I'm
almost sure that neither .GIF nor .JPG files are produced. I'll check tonight.

I'm certainly in favor of making any and all of my .MUS files available to
the widest possible audience, but I don't see any simple way of doing
it right now. You all will be the first to know if I think of something.

Oliver