Sibelius and Scorch

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DaveF
Site Admin
Posts: 146
Joined: 12 Jan 2006 21:11
Location: Abergavenny, Gwent, UK

Sibelius and Scorch

Post by DaveF »

Hi everyone,

Good to be back, BTW - been doing lots of other things, not all of which were not early music editing (apologies for contorted syntax), so I'm planning to post some goodies fairly soon. But...

I feel a bit stupid asking this question, as I'm sure it has been asked before, but couldn't locate the thread. As I've explained on recent editions to my user page, I no longer want to make my Sibelius source files available, but would like to upload Scorch webpages, which seem to offer users a much enhanced listening experience over MIDI files. But the file upload function just throws back a message that '".htm" is not a recommended image file format.' - without apparently offering the option to go with an unrecommended format.

The closest I can find to a previous discussion of this is one from Rob Nottingham about the same problem bedevilling the uploading of an mp3 - was that one ever solved, does anyone know? Clearly there are both mp3s and Scorch .htms resident on the Williams server, but are they banned by wiki?

DF
MandyShaw
Posts: 79
Joined: 28 May 2007 09:11
Location: Bath, England

Post by MandyShaw »

Have you managed to embed the .sib score inline within your HTML page? I ask because I tried very hard to do this about 6 months ago & was completely defeated by Microsoft's lack of adherence to open standards within IE ...
The standard HTML page generated by Sibelius, as I recall, assumes that the .sib file is also present as a separate file on the web server, accessed from the HTML page via the Scorch plugin. This means that you need to upload both files, maintaining the folder structure link between them, & also means that the .sib file is still available to anyone who views the source of the HTML page.
The only other way of doing it that I have found is to have a web server that's capable of delivering the .sib score as a binary stream on demand (this does work, but assumes you have access to the right sort of web server and that you want to do a bit of programming).
So if you've managed to get the score inline (i.e. encapsulated within the HTML page) I would really appreciate knowing how.
If not, I would probably recommend that you upload your stuff to www.SibeliusMusic.com as free scores - this costs nothing and does successfully hide your .sib file from the public while retaining the provision of playback etc. - you then just link to it from CPDL as an external web link. I use this technique and it's relatively pain free (although, as discussed elsewhere in this forum, it does oblige your users to update their Scorch plugins fairly often, which is a pain).
MandyShaw
Posts: 79
Joined: 28 May 2007 09:11
Location: Bath, England

P.S.

Post by MandyShaw »

Here's an example:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/O_du ... Trabaci%29
The Scorch link goes straight to the relevant page on www.sibeliusmusic.com.
I should clarify that one problem you may encounter with SibeliusMusic is that straight transcriptions won't get through the SibMusic approval system, for some reason lost in history - if your stuff is not a straight transcription (e.g. you've notated a figured bass, or added a reduction, or transposed it to make a performable edition, or whatever) and you make it clear that this is an 'arrangement' in the programme note, you should be OK. We use a SibMusic 'store' (for which you do have to pay), which does avoid this problem once and for all.
DaveF
Site Admin
Posts: 146
Joined: 12 Jan 2006 21:11
Location: Abergavenny, Gwent, UK

Post by DaveF »

Mandy,

Thanks for taking time over such a detailed answer. I hadn't even got to the point of considering the problem of embedding the .sib file - I had decided on the considerably lower-tech method of uploading the .sib file to the wiki server but effectively hiding it by only posting a link to the .htm, which would have deterred all but the most determined downloaders. But if wiki can't cope with .htms, then that idea doesn't even get started. I suppose I'm back to .pdfs and .mids after all.

I suspect from what you say in your second message that my Byrdie bits wouldn't get onto sibelius.com because of the "transcription" rule, even though the transcriptions in question are from 400-year-old partbooks. Sibelius are probably trying to protect themselves not only from the straight copying of modern editions with editorial copyright on them, but also from transcriptions from copyrighted sources such as libraries' electronic images.

Anyway, thanks again.

DF
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