Among the emerging applications of music scores we can see production and adoption of multimedia digital objects based on music score for distance learning/tuition of music, etc. In these applications, the music notation model has to provide distinct mechanisms for modeling symbolic and visual aspects of music and for defining the relationships among such aspects and in particular between music scores and audio files of real performance. This paper explains the capabilities of WEDELMUSIC regarding the synchronization and execution of music scores synchronous with audio files. The functionality is supported by a free music editor: www.wedelmusic.org. The tool has been developed during the WEDELMUSIC IST Research project funded by the European Commission.

As computer technologies and their potential emerging applications spread out, new needs have been detected for computer-based applications of music; cooperative music notation editing both in orchestras and music schools is one of them. This article is the only public document describing the details of cooperative work on music notation of MOODS (Music Object Oriented Distributed System). MOODS is a synchronous real-time cooperative editor for music scores. Its architecture includes mechanisms for troubleshooting conflicts in real-time, managing histories of commands and versioning, and for performing selective undo. The system also includes specific solutions in order to control the editing on the account of editing permission profiles. The most important aspects of MOODS associated with cooperative work on music notation scores are reported herein. The article highlights the general problems of cooperative systems and provides rationales for the solutions, which were found to build MOODS. The MOODS system has been implemented and validated thanks to the endeavor of several musicians in orchestras, music schools, and project partners. A prototype has been demonstrated in public at the Scala Theatre in Milan, Italy.

Most of the commonly used watermark applications are referred to color or black and white pictorial images. Watermarking techniques are adopted to hide codes that can be used to demonstrate the ownership of the digital objects in case of copyright infringement verification. A technique for watermarking music scores/sheets is presented. The solution has been defined to satisfy specific user requirements. These have been collected by using the expert user group of the European Project WEDELMUSIC. They took into account the capability of musicians in detecting changes in the music sheets. The approach has been validated by using experts and technical experiments.