Interactive Music Site

Would it be possible to make LDS music files that are compatible with Finale (the standard) or other notation programs.

It would be nice if songs could be easily uploaded to notation software for easy re-arranging, without starting from scratch. Is there already something that allows that?

With the limited amount of active LDS arrangers, the ability to quickly upload LDS music notation to a notation program could encourage the rest of to get in the game and provide new arrangements of LDS favorites.

I've dabbled a bit in arranging a few hymns (some more successfully than others ), although I use a competing product to Finale. Built in to most of these music editing programs is usually some sort of scanning software to input sheet music, or in this case, hymns to the music editor. I think the one for Finale is Smartscore Lite. Although these have varying success rates (just like early OCR software), usually after a bit of touch-up you're good to go.

For me, having the hymns already available in some sort of music notation would be nice, but it would only save me a couple of steps in the overall process.

I haven't had much luck with Finale's SmartMusic Lite. The results are usually far off from the scanned music. I'm scanning at 600dpi on a standard HP $150 printer/scanner. Perhaps I need something out of my price range.

Finale has an Import > MusicXML option. The tech.lds.org site lists "MusicXML for new content" on it's projects page: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Int ... ic_Project (listed under Technology). Maybe something will happen down the road ??

Blending the LDS music site with popular notation sounds like a great idea.

In the meantime, I need to stop being lazy and start writing something down. I love to modify music as I play, but don't usually have the patience to write anything down.

riverton wrote:In the meantime, I need to stop being lazy and start writing something down. I love to modify music as I play, but don't usually have the patience to write anything down.

I'm don't know what you play, but might there be some MIDI tools that would help?

riverton wrote:I haven't had much luck with Finale's SmartMusic Lite. The results are usually far off from the scanned music. I'm scanning at 600dpi on a standard HP $150 printer/scanner. Perhaps I need something out of my price range.

I use PhotoScore Lite that ships with Sybelius and have the best luck using 300-400 dpi. When I try higher resolutions, it actually produces less accurate results. I don't have any experience with Finale's scanning software, but perhaps it's similar.

RussellHltn wrote:I'm don't know what you play, but might there be some MIDI tools that would help?

Yes, most music notation software I've seen has direct input capability via MIDI (or USB) keyboard.

It would be nice to be able to get the songs in MusicXML and/or midi files.

We have multiple instruments: flute, clarinet, viola, violin, piano. We could connect the keyboard to the computer -- but that means a fight with the wife over re-arranging furniture.

I guess my goal is to convince the big chiefs to make the hymns compatible with common notation software programs.

riverton wrote:I guess my goal is to convince the big chiefs to make the hymns compatible with common notation software programs.

Although a good set of MusicXML files would be preferred, I stumbled across a pretty good collection of LDS Hymns done in MIDI here...

http://people.uleth.ca/~anderson/midi-orig.html

Near the bottom of the page is a link to snag them all in one 250KB ZIP file. The files are by hymn numbers only (no titles), so you will probably need a hymn book handy to find the one(s) you want. There are a few copyrighted hymns missing from the list, but other than that, it's fairly complete.

I imported a couple into my notation program without any issues, except (as expected) they will have to be aesthetically cleaned up a bit after importing.

-Mike

Beautiful. Finale imports the music perfectly. I have page numbers memorized from popular hymns, so the numbered titles work great.

Thank you for the link. I'm just starting with Finale, but my daughters have mastered it, so I'm on my way.

That link may be a good resource to add to the official LDS music website.

Ken

Não estou conseguindo entrar no intetactive sheet music com divisão de vozes

This is a very old topic but I have an opportunity to teach several members at once how to play hymns. Does anyone here still have that midi file of all the hymns for download? It is of course no longer available. The Interactive is great for those who know what they are doing, but my students are having trouble working with it on their own.
It would be great to create a playlist with needed parameters for them already set. But I don't think they are url facing settings

Not much has changed. Not sure exactly how you are teaching but perhaps something here helps.
MIDI might be a lost cause (I am very interested if someone has the midi files). All LDS music downloads are PDFs and MP3s.

I created a little app to organize hymns into lists, favorites and a playlist-type setting (works best with an iPad). But I still had to download each PDF individually. Once inside the app, I can play through the PDFs (one song after another) for prelude or other church purposes and tap to flip the page (no cost if you're interested). I simply use the app to organize and reorder hymns to meet my own purposes. Once downloaded, manipulating the order like a playlist is easy. The LDS library MP3 files could also be downloaded for 'playlist' purposes. That's still a lot of up-front work downloading each individually. To get music that plays as you read the PDF is above my skill level and Finale is now out of business, but I suppose you could listen to the MP3 while playing from the PDF.

The newly released hymns are all available in a single PDF download with page numbers (not from the church site). I could email that if you are interested.

If your purpose is to import into Finale, basic hymns without complications (PDF) import nicely into the last version of Finale. PDFs import better if first processed through the expensive version of Smartscore (SmartScore 64 NE Pro - the cheaper versions do poorly) and then imported into Finale. With that said, Finale is no longer supported. Finale recommends switching to Dorico - which is less intuitive. Finale is history as of July 23, 2026. Music that is processed through Smartscore should transfer over to Dorico. Both have a nasty learning curve.

No easy answers.

ksroberts wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2026 4:12 pm (I am very interested if someone has the midi files). All LDS music downloads are PDFs and MP3s.

You have to get them one at a time, but each of the midi files for the new hymns can be obtained by using the instructions in this post in another topic.

That helps.
Seems the website no longer exists but I was able to recover the old MIDI files.
At first glance, there appear to be over 300 hymns and over 100 Primary songs.

I got em !!

I found 293 hymns and 108 Primary songs all in MIDI format. 343 files with lyrics.