HUGE MuseScore News: Instant Transposition Is Coming to Hymncharts!

by Don Chapman

Two years ago, on August 26, 2024, MakeMusic announced that it was discontinuing Finale and ending its development.

On September 23, 2024 (nearly two years ago to the day!) I wrote my “R.I.P. Finale” blog post. A comment from James B. became the deciding factor in my choosing MuseScore over Dorico:

If MuseScore is easier for ordinary folk to pick up and learn, then I would think that would be where you would be of the most help for your users.

The free aspect is also helpful to smaller churches that operate on small budgets, who use your scores.

Great advice!

But I faced one enormous problem: How on earth was I going to turn more than 6,000 pages of Finale files into MuseScore files?

Simply importing a Finale XML file didn’t work – the notes and lyrics are there but the formatting is completely off. I tried hiring a guy to create a Musescore style sheet but that only got things about 70% there.

Imagine the thousands of dollars it would cost to have someone code software. How would I even find someone who could code such a niche thing? And then the thousands of dollars it would take to actually do the file conversions!

I figured I would have to wait until AI became powerful enough to get the job done.

That day has finally come.

Over the past two years, with each new version of ChatGPT, the possibility seemed to get closer. Still, the results were never accurate enough for my standards.

Then the new GPT-6 Astra model arrived on Sept. 3. I watched people on X build crazy things with it. One person even created a Photoshop clone that could open and save Photoshop files!

I thought, “I bet this could code software that turns my Finale files into MuseScore files!”

I gave CODEX the prompt (CODEX is the vibe coding brother of ChatGPT) and 1 hour, 3 minutes and 6 seconds later it had created software that would open my Finale .mus files and turn them into Musescore .mscz files with 99% accuracy.

I nearly fainted.

Somehow, it had extracted the musical information while also preserving nearly all the formatting and spacing!

My Instant Transposing Dream

A dream I have had for nearly twenty years at Hymncharts was to have instantly transposeable sheet music. I looked into every option but it simply didn’t exist.

Again, until now.

Now that I had a working MuseScore file, CODEX got back to work and created a transposition feature for the sheet music!

Soon, instead of downloading only a fixed-key keyboard or lead sheet PDF, you will be able to click the TRANSPOSE button. A browser window will open where you can select the key you need from the keys most commonly used by worship teams. Here’s what it looks like:

In other words, two dreams I have had for years were fulfilled in a single day!

The first prototype is now available for All Hail the Power 2026. Log in to Hymncharts or Worshiphymns, try it for yourself, and help me find any glitches.

After you’ve played with it a few days you might have some suggestions worth implementing. In the meantime I’ll start preparing the Christmas music with these exciting new features!

P.S. Finale files aren’t going away. For all the die-hard Finale fans out there who will never stop using Finale (I’m one of you!) I’ll continue to provide Finale files for my new arrangements. I’ll always create new arrangements in Finale 2000 (yes, my 26 year old version of Finale still works fine!) and then have my software convert it into MuseScore.