converter21 4.0.1

A music21-extending format converter package and command line tool (replaces music21's Humdrum and MEI parser, and adds a Humdrum writer and MEI writer)

converter21

A music21-extending converter package that contains music21 extensions that read/write Humdrum, MEI, and ABC files. converter21 is also a command line tool for conversion between many music notation file formats.

The Humdrum portion of this software is derived/translated from the C++ code in humlib, by Craig Stuart Sapp.

The core of the MEI parsing portion of this software was based on the MEI converter in music21, by Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert.

The ABC portion of this software uses abc2xml.py and xml2abc.py, by Willem G. Vree.

Setup

Requires Python 3.10 or later. Depends on music21 v9.9.1, which should also be configured (instructions here) to display a musical score (e.g. with Musescore). Some of the tests depend on musicdiff, but converter21 itself does not.

Command line tool usage:

python3 -m converter21 [-h]
                       [-f from_format]
                       -t to_format
                       [-c]
                       input_file output_file

Positional arguments:
  input_file            input music file to convert from (extension is used to determine input
                        format if --input-from/-f is not specified)
  output_file           output music file to convert to (extension is NOT used to determine or
                        validate output format, so if you're not careful you'll end up with
                        contents not matching the extension)

Named arguments:
  -h, --help            show help message and exit
  -f, --input-from {humdrum,musicxml,mei,abc...}
                        format of the input file (only necessary if input file has unsupported or
                        incorrect extension)
  -t, --output-to {humdrum,musicxml,lilypond,braille...}
                        format of the output file (required)
  -c, --cached-parse-ok
                        use music21's cached parse of the input file if it exists

API usage:

Call converter21.register() to get music21 to use converter21's alternate Humdrum and MEI converters in your own code.

License

The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2021-2026 Greg Chapman

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

The Humdrum parsing/writing portion of this software is derived/translated from the C++ code in humlib, which uses the BSD 2-Clause License:

Copyright (c) 2015-2021 Craig Stuart Sapp All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The core of the MEI parsing portion of this software was based on the MEI parser in music21, which uses the BSD 3-Clause License:

Copyright (c) 2006-2026 Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the names music21, Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert, nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Cuthbert BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The ABC reader/writer in this software uses abc2xml.py and xml2abc.py, which use the Lesser GNU General Public Licence:

Copyright (C) 2012-2025: Willem G. Vree

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Lesser GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the Lesser GNU General Public Licence for more details.