The Simplified Notation app for Sheet Music
SNapp is an internet browser application that converts MusicXML files to sheet music with WYSIWYP notation and displays them on a handheld device or personal computer. As a browser app, it is available on all screen devices for Windows, Linux, Android, and Apple operating systems. Because it is open-source, it is available to any developer who would like to embellish it. The goal is to make this technology available to as wide a target audience as possible.
Starting SNapp
As a web app, the browser on your device must have an internet connection. The internet connection is needed only to load the app into the browser and is subsequently not needed to convert MusicXML files to sheet music. If the browser (or the tab containing the app) is closed, the app will have to be reloaded from the internet. Here is the URL: snapp.wysiwyp.org This URL opens the SNapp Home page.
The SNapp Home page
The first time you try SNapp you may not already have a MusicXML file to open. To get a sample file, click on "download sample MusicXML files" to go to the WYSIWYP site music files page. See below.
Clicking on "open Sheet Music from a MusicXML file" lets you navigate on your device to select the MusicXML file. If you downloaded one from the WYSIWYP site then navigate to your browser's download folder. (FYI compressed files will have the extension .mxl while the uncompressed files have .musicxml. Either is acceptable.)
Select your file and SNapp then opens the Sheet Music page (see below) with the sheet music displayed in WYSIWYP notation.
The WYSIWYP site music files page
This page allows you to preview Sheet Music PDF files to see what they will look like when displayed in SNapp. Pick one of the compressed MusicXML files and click the download text. The compressed MusicXML file will have a file extension .xml. The MusicXML file is downloaded to your browser's download folder. A pdf file can be optionally downloaded as well from your pdf viewer, e.g., Adobe Acrobat.
The Sheet Music page
Click here to get a complete description of this page.
Future enhancement to SNapp
SNapp is currently a prototype but it has sufficient functionality for an evaluation of all the changes to Traditional Notation implemented by WYSIWYP. It also implements the most important notational elements in scores that are used by beginning students of music. It is currently limited to sheet music for a single instrument. Below is a relatively prioritized list of planned changes at some time in the future. it should be added that none of these are likely to be easy to implement.
Grandstaff display range adjustments. Currently all Grandstaves (i.e., rows on a virtual page of sheet music) are set to a fixed tone range based on the highest and lowest notes in the entire score. But this leads to some rows displaying a wider range that what actually appears in those rows, so there can be a lot of wasted space (where there are no noteheads). The proposed change would set each row individually according to the range of notes just in that row. This generally would not be of much help to most beginners' scores because they have a relatively narrow range. But for more complicated classical music scores with wide ranges, this would help reduces space and page counts.
User preference for fixed staff positions. Currently SNapp expands and contracts staves according the range of the (entire) score. In order to simplify transitions to/from Traditional Notation and WYSIWYP, this preference would set a (minimum) fixed range that approximates the Traditional Notation Treble and Bass staves. They still might expand beyond the fixed range to accommodate the entire range of notes in the score in the same way Traditional Notation expands with ledger lines. It's likely this would be implemented in conjunction with the previous change.
Implement notation for slurs. This is an important element that is used by players at all levels.
Implement all of the other miscellaneous Traditional Notation symbols listed on this page. Most of these are more important to intermediate and advanced players. This is probably a never ending list.
User preference for the display of Traditional Notation duration symbols. This would help students who have learned to play with WYSIWYP and its notetail durations to learn to read Traditional Notation's stem and flag system. There may also be another user preference to then hide the display of WYSIWYP's notetails to further the learning transition.
Support changing of key signatures and time signatures in the same score. This currently works in some situations but a more thorough implementation is needed. This is probably not often needed for most scores played by beginners.
support for additional staff types (clefs) and multiple parts/voices
Support for creation and editing of scores. This is a huge implementation and is not likely to happen any time soon. Take a look at MuseScore and you will get the idea of the scope of a sheet music editor.