this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023

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WTF is going on with OpenScore/MuseScore? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I just bought my kids a digital piano for Christmas and I'm looking for free beginner sheet music -- not even pirated stuff, just free-as-in-freedom (Creative Commons, Public Domain, etc.) stuff -- and I run across OpenScore. It claims that it "aims to digitize and liberate all public domain sheet music" and that "the OpenScore editions will be released into the Public Domain using Creative Commons Zero, allowing unlimited copying, adapting and sharing. The sky is the limit, without having to pay a penny."

But then you click on one of the links to go to the actual sheet music, and it takes you to musescore.com, which won't actually let you download anything without creating an account (which is 100% NOT "liberated," whether you have to pay money or not). What in the bait-and-switch fraud is this shit?!

At this point, I want to download every single goddamn Creative Commons or Public Domain piece of music MuseScore has, just as a matter of principle. But how?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I dunno but see IMSLP.org for lots of classical sheets if that's your thing. lvl1 piano

[+] [email protected] -25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

First of all, even that site is weirdly sketchy for what it claims to be, with a bullshit redirection making you wait and hawking a subscription instead of just linking directly to the goddamn PDFs.

Second, what I really want to know from this thread is specifically how to take everything from MuseScore that they've dishonestly account-walled. The needless restrictions on downloading Creative Commons-licensed and Public Domain scores offend me and I want to retaliate.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago

Barking at people who try to help isn’t retaliation- it’s just shitty.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago

Imslp is a free library of public domain music. I too find their fundraising methods distasteful, but full resolution scans take up much more server space than plain text, so I understand it. Imslp remains the best source for public domain scores.

MuseScore is an open source project. Due to its license the software itself must be open source perpetually, the new owners have used it to push their proprietary network to make money by hijacking a free software project.

I have musescore 3 on my computer because version 4 is such a step backwards.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

Imslp is legit, I've been using that site for years and downloading sheet music for free all through college. I finally decided to pay for a subscription a few years ago even though I don't play as much classical music now. Web hosting isn't free, and they provide a super valuable service that you can access for free with a mild inconvenience.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

How would you like them to fund their providing you with this data?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I found a software project called LibreScore (new version) / musescore-downloader (old version). (I'm linking the old version because the readme has useful background info about MuseScore's bad faith, which wasn't copied to the newer project.) However, the app gives me an error when I try to download anything.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/musescore-downloader

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

I haven't used musescore in over a decade, what the fuck happened

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

I think you may want https://musopen.org/

musescore is composition software.

Most of what's there seems not beginner friendly, but there may be something. You should think about getting them a piano primer series and/or lessons if they don't already know how to play. I took lessons that focused on the Bastien basics series https://www.amazon.com/Bastien-Piano-Basics-Primer-Learning/dp/B07ZL5636N/

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

I finally caved and decided to log in to the MuseScore app and it's awful: confusing login process, and pop ups to prompt you to subscribe to Pro before even using the app to view a single song, with no obvious way of closing the pop up (no skip button or X button).

Trash. I will never subscribe out of principle.