Talk:Optical music recognition

Removal of External Links
Per WP:EL, only certain types of links are allowed in articles. First, direct links (that is, links embedded in the text itself to outside websites) are almost never allowed. Second, we only link to a very small, limited set of outside links, examples of which can be found in the subsection WP:ELYES. The links to the Proprietary software programs are definitely not allowed, under numbers 1, 4, 5, and possibly other criteria of WP:ELNO. Thus, I am going to remove the links now.

As far as keeping them listed as red-links...I would argue it's not necessary. WP:RED says we should only have redlinks for articles that are likely to be created. I'm fairly certain that those software programs do not meet the general notability guidelines, meaning that the articles can never be created. On this part, though, I'd like to hear what others think. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed the other links in "See Also"; the Gamera and Aruspix fail for the same reason as in the first paragraph above; Scorewriter is not directly related to this topic, so it doesn't go into a See Also; and I changed the title of the section to External Links. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

PDFtoMusic Pro does no OCR
PDFtoMusic PRO scans PDF for instructions as "draw 5 horizontal lines" and does no OCR.

"Therefore, scanned sheet music cannot be managed by PDFtoMusic Pro."

It should be removed from the list

Bassklampfe (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. --L.Willms (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

unfilled voices
A recent edit objected to the term "unfilled voices". I added the term back and I am bringing the issue to the talk page for discussion. "unfilled voices" are quite common and certainly not included in the phrase "non-standard symbols". My understanding of "unfilled voices" is any multi-voice measure with "hidden rests" (to use a term from music software notation). --dbolton (talk) 01:26, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Table "Optical Music Recognition Systems"
Optical Music Recognition Systems This is the table by Donald Byrd published and linked from the article at http://homes.soic.indiana.edu/donbyrd/OMRSystemsTable.html copied with his authorisation and converted to Wiki. I asked per eMail and he wrote back on Wednesday, 11 November 2015 at 19:34:
 * I didn't know it was linked from the Wikipedia article;
 * thanks for telling me.
 * Yes, I still care about this table -- I think it could really be
 * useful to people -- but it's not useful now, out of date as it is,
 * and for several reasons I don't know when I'll ever get back to it.
 * I like your idea of moving the table into the Wikipedia article!
 * Please feel free to move it. I would appreciate it if it says
 * somewhere that the original version is by me, but if you don't want
 * to or don't see a nice way to do that, it's okay.
 * --Don
 * --Don
 * --Don

I have separated the product name and version into two columns. Now, this table has not been updated for eight years. I have just updated some info on capella scan which I own and use myself. Others have to update the rest and update or add or delete stuff. We might another column indicating if this piece of software is still available, and if it still under active maintenance and development. --L.Willms (talk) 21:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but we can't take your word about permission. Under law, Donald Byrd is the only one who can give permission.  Written permission must be sent to Wikipedia.  Instructions are found at Declaration of consent for all enquiries.  Bgwhite (talk) 06:02, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have forwarded Donald Byrd's email to the email address indicated on the page which you mention, permissions-en@wikimedia.org and have informed Donald Byrd about your demands. --L.Willms (talk) 07:09, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * And he has immediately filled out the form and sent it to the same address. Can we now continue the work? --L.Willms (talk) 14:51, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Before "BGwhite" removed the table, a non-registered user called Elliot Lee had already updated the entry on "Audiveris". That is the way to go, and in the end there will be hardly anything be left from the Donald Byrd's eight year old table except having provided the framework for the actual table; the framework which had already been modified by me introducing the separate column for the version number. I see it as quite strange to make such a fuss about copyright. --L.Willms (talk) 10:11, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

It's all OK now, and BGwhite has done a great job by wikifying the table and improving its layout. --L.Willms (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

An eight-year-old table?
recently added a seriously out-of-date table here, and has been battling for its retention. Why, I wonder? The information is of little more than historic interest. The comments on the various products are unsourced. This isn't a price comparison website, nor a link repository, so the price and website columns are inappropriate for this encyclopaedia. The content (more or less) duplicates the list of products already in the page, which is a great deal easier to read. We don't need the detail of formats supported, platforms and so on because that is covered in the pages on the individual products (or it would be if there were such pages) – and if we did need it we'd need it to be up-to-date and cited to reliable sources. And so on. So I've removed the table.

If there's consensus here to convert the list of products to table format then of course I'd have no objection. At the moment I see no value in doing so. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, and if anyone really needs to know what music OCR programs were available eight years ago, they can follow the external link to Donald Byrd's table. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:47, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete table. L.Willms heart is in the right place, and I don't want to discourage, but WP isn't meant to be a buyers' guide. The article doesn't need a table that tries to list all possible programs, their features, and their price. There are two ELs that describe products (one is the source of the current table); let them serve; somebody in the market will also Google and read current reviews. Even if the table were brought up-to-date today, it would be stale in a few years -- and it would be a spam magnet. The list of products above the table is also suspect: there are a lot of products but few are actually WP articles. The article would keep better focus if it kept to what Music OCR is, its history, how it's done, what its significant features are, and point to programs that are notable enough to have their own WP article. Glrx (talk) 16:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Don't Delete, but improve. Add information about Open Source/Closed Source, Free/Commercial, Supported File Formats for Input/Output, Scanner Support. This would be Wiki-Style. Delete is simple, improve is work, but the better choice. Bassklampfe (talk) 12:18, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

In-text weblinks
I removed a number of in-text weblinks from this article based on my reading of WP:EL and on the post by higher up this page. Specifically, I read at WP:EL: "they should not normally be placed in the body of an article". That seems pretty clear to me, and seems to reflect our practice here. Nevertheless, that removal was by  with the edit summary "the links can serve as refs". Well, no, not really; what we use as refs is properly formatted citations. I've actually no objection if someone wants to convert those to references; but as in-text weblinks, they should be removed. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:08, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I reverted and then immediately wrapped the URLs in  tags. WP:EL states (emphasis in original):
 * While it may seem counter-intuitive, please note: These external-link guidelines do not apply to footnoted citations within the body of the article.
 * I'm didn't format the refs further, but the URLs presumably supply (or supplied) further information about the programs. Glrx (talk) 19:33, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So you did. What for? Not one of those is an independent reliable source, which is what we expect our references to be. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:52, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 27 January 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved per WP:SILENCE (non-admin closure). f eminist  14:14, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Music OCR → Optical music recognition – Optical music recognition is a much more commonly used name. Compare Google Scholar results for Music OCR (49 results) instead of Optical music recognition (1190 results). Dringw (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2017 (UTC)


 * There's a REDIRECT from Optical music recognition to this article, so it's already named such, in a way. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:10, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Are there any objections to renaming this article Optical music recognition and making "Music OCR" redirect to it? Dringw (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.