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MaxScore

MaxScore provides music notation in Max and Ableton Live!

Wouldn’t you like to work with a notation program that’s a little more flexible than Finale, Sibelius, Dorico etc? A program that can be driven by sending it messages and that can easily be extended by things that are essential to your workflow? A program that brings music notation to Ableton Live, and let’s you view the same music in different notation styles? A program that supports proportional scrolling scores that will be displayed on a handheld device and allows you to create microtonal or graphical scores which also act as controllers? 

If so, then MaxScore will be the right application for you. 

MaxScore is Max package for creating standard, microtonal, graphical and/or interactive scores which has been further developed at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama within its Stage_2.0 outreach project.

MaxScore - common music notation for Max and Ableton Live!

MaxScore provides the computer music composer with common music notation directly in the Max/MSP environment. MaxScore is a Max object which accepts messages that can create a score, populate it with notes, perform it, and export to popular formats for professional publishable results. MaxScore currently supports export via MusicXML for input into Finale, as well as LilyPond format.

MaxScore is more than a notation tool, it is an interactive performance object. MaxScore can play back a score and drive your MSP patches through a well-defined instrument interface. Scores can be created and modified in real-time. You can add notes explicitly by defining their properties (specifying a quarter note triplet as duration and middle C as pitch), or generate an arbitrary stream of musical events and use MaxScore’s transcriber to notate them automatically.

MaxScore was programmed in Java Music Specification Language by Nick Didkovsky (but requires no Java programming), and is freely available to the public. MaxScore was commissioned by “Bipolar – German-Hungarian Cultural Projects.”

MaxScore requires a JMSL license to run, available at www.algomusic.com. A 30-day trial license is available for free.

Beta version 1.2b9 for Max 8.1.4 (and higher) and Ableton Live 10.1.30 (posted on February 21, 2021).

Download for MacOS
Download for Windows

MaxScore / LiveScore requires the JDK. As of MaxScore 1.2.b8, it is included in the installer.

For a manual Java installation, get the JDK for your operating system

Just her – Jester – Gesture

Live recording of “Just Her – Jester – Gesture” by Georg Hajdu. Recorded by Milan Maric (www.sittl.com) on June 13, 2016 at the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse.

Chen Lin, Augmented Kalimba

Projects & Pieces

Welcome to MaxScore!

MaxScore provides a barrage of different possibilities for musicians, composers, creators, programmers and not only. It offers maximum flexibility for music notation, as it gives the opportunity to create a score and interfere with it in multiple groundbreaking and creative ways. The advantage of using MaxScore in comparison to other professional notation environments is its integration into the Max environment, allowing programmers to adapt the application to their needs. MaxScore is a leading application for graphical and microtonal notation. It gives the opportunity to integrate graphics and it is designed to represent pitch with visually unlimited precision. Furthermore, the API part of MaxScore is capable of rendering different environments and interacting with 3d objects. It is the perfect tool to combine music notation with VR/AR environments and it interferes with Jitter or Max Canvas. Another feature that makes MaxScore unique is its capability to export a score to different popular formats for professional publishing.

For the tutorials on MaxScore refer to References in Help Menu in Max/MSP itself. You can learn step by step how to use the multiple possibilities it offers and benefit from it.

Installation

Refer to this page for further instructions as to how to use install MaxScore.

Livescore

LiveScore is a visual notation environment for Live based on MaxScore. It is thoroughly integrated into Live via the API provided by Max and allows the transcription and editing of Live MIDI clips. Get more information here

Engaging, purposeful, and creative

MaxScore was originally commissioned by “Bipolar – German-Hungarian Cultural Projects” – an initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany and is currently supported by Stage_2.0, project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within its Innovative Hochschule initiative.

Just her - Live Recording

New Music USA

I used Max/MSP to tap along to her recitation and make a text file of millisecond counts for when each syllable occurred. I tightened these up in Audacity to line up precisely, and then I exported the numbers again. I wanted to use these numbers to make a notation in Abjad, but Abjad didn’t have a quantizer… We ended up looking up some research together, especially Paul Nauert’s writing on Q-Grids quantization, and Josiah ended up making the quantizer for Abjad.

Roomtone Variations (2011) - Nicolas Collins

I use a feedback system for finding the strong resonances (basically a 24 filter version of the Sabine Feedback Exterminator), and convert the fcs to their nearest tempered equivalent. I then “fold” the full range down, by octaves, to progressively narrower ranges — this latter tactic came from experiments I was doing on what I call “the fallacy of octave equivalence” (intervals change feeling with spread), about which I got into extended correspondence with Christian Wolff. I’ve included a pdf of typical notation sets and the final nulling filter set. Thank YOU guys for all the custom work & advice — I hope I can do it justice.

www.synthtopia.com

“MaxScore is more than a notation tool. It is an interactive performance object. MaxScore can play back a score and drive your MSP patches through a well-defined instrument interface. Scores can be created and modified in real-time. You can add notes explicitly by specifying durations and pitches, or use Max to generate an arbitrary stream of musical events and use MaxScore’s Transcriber to notate them automatically.''

https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org

"Didkovsky collaborated with composer Georg Hajdu to create MaxScore, which allows JMSL’s scoring package to communicate with the more popular audio programming environment Max/MSP. Currently, most of Didkovsky’s development energies are directed towards improving MaxScore."

Arne Eigenfeldt

"MaxScore has changed the way I work with Max (which I’ve been using since 1991). Since I’m trained as a composer, I feel most comfortable when I can see my music represented symbolically, and MaxScore allows for that seamlessly. My research into generative systems incorporating genetic algorithms, multiagent systems, and ALife approaches now find their “voice” in notated music. In December 2011, my research group presented a concert of Musical Metacreation (computationally creative systems that produce music that should be indistinguishable from human-composed), in which MaxScore was indispensable. My software generated compositions (using a multi-stage genetic algorithm) that were sent to MaxScore, and the data saved as MusicXML files, which were imported into Finale and performed by musicians."

Contact

    MaxScore  is currently supported by Stage_2.0, project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within its Innovative Hochschule initiative. Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within its Innovative Hochschule initiative.

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