[MusicTlk] PlayScore2

[Ella Yu]

Hi, I use PlayScore 2 to OCR violin/viola parts for community orchestra and
whatever else I want to work on if I can't find an XML file online. It's
definitely not perfect, and I find that PDFs that come from notation
software like typesets from IMSLP give me 90%+ note accuracy, while scanned
PDFs vary far more and contain a lot more wrong notes. Music OCR will never
be perfect. I export the XML and send it to someone to fix it up in
MuseScore or whatever notation software and they send me back the corrected
file. I don't use PlayScore's playback features much; I just learn my parts
and practice along with YouTube a lot, just like you do. I never deal with
ensemble scores, just single instrument parts. I use NVDA on Windows to
access PlayScore and it's pretty accessible for the most part except for
some sliders.

One related question, and I realize all of us blind musicians/ensemble
nerds deal with this: am I being a burden by asking others to help
transcribe music for me? I have been managing the burden of getting the
music I need into the formats I need solely through the assistance of
immediate family for a long time now, but I could be losing some of this
support sometime in the foreseeable future. The problem is not at all a
lack of resources or tools on my end, I'm able to find XML files online for
a significant majority of what I'm playing, I have a free MusicXML to
braille program I'm in love with, it's just the people problem. The person
who I send my PlayScore-processed XMLs to is heading off to school shortly
(though they'll be home on weekends), so they shouldn't have to help me
with this forever. I honestly hate to be burdening busy people with this
sort of thing, so that's why I would appreciate some input/validation.
Ideally finding someone in orchestra to help me with this would be great,
but most of the people I've talked to don't really know anything about
notation software. Thoughts? Yeah, I could just run with an imperfect XML
file with multiple wrong notes, but string parts blend well together and
they're not so easy to isolate through the texture unless I know with total
certainty I've got the right notes. I know just how much trumpet/horn parts
tend to stick out though.

On Sat, Aug 23, 2025 at 3:37 PM Catherine Samuel via MusicTlk <
musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Has anyone tried PlayScore2? You can import PDF's and other sheet music
> files, and it will run OCR on them. If you're importing a score with
> multiple instruments, it can figure out which part is which, and you can
> set
> each line as a different instrument. You can also change the volume on one
> instrument, so for example if you play the French horn and you need that
> part to stand out, you can make it louder. I just started playing with it
> today. It's not perfect. You wouldn't want to rely on it to get a perfect
> recording or make Braille music for something. But it seems to be a great
> tool. I will use it in combination with a professional ensemble recording
> to
> learn my part to things. I imported a PDF of some brass quintet music into
> it, and it did a pretty great job rendering a Midi file of it. If you've
> used PlayScore2, I'd love to hear what you've used it for. Its
> accessibility
> with JAWS isn't perfect, but it's workable. Thanks.
>
> Catherine
>
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