How do I get content into SingAccord?

SingAccord imports the lingua franca of music notation, MusicXML.  Unfortunately, the leading Christian worship music online retailers usually only offer .pdf's and .mus/.musx, which SingAccord cannot import, and will never be able to import (for reasons listed below).  So until they decide to sell you the content they don't know they're not selling to you, you'll need to go on a hunt for content.  While you're on your hunt, drop a note at your favorite online Christian worship music retailer and ask them to sell their content in MusicXML files.  They won't do it if you don't ask.

Where  you  can  get  Music  notation  content  now

• NoteFlight.com can export scores as MusicXML.  (CCLI's SongSelect uses NoteFlight, but does not support export-as-MusicXML).
• LifeWayWorship.com and PraiseCharts.com sell full orchestrations as .mus & .musx (Finale) files.  Finale can open these and export to MusicXML.
• Hymnary.org has thousands of professionally-rendered traditional hymnal content, some of which are available in MusicXML
• timelesstruths.org has .sib (Sibelius) files, but if you alter the file extension in the download link from ".sib" to ".xml", there are usually MusicXML files, also.

• MuseScore.org has thousands of peer-created MusicXML files.
• Indelible Grace Hymn Book  has many hymns available in .mus format, which can be opened by Finale and exported to MusicXML.  Unfortunately, these are formatted for page layout, and often the lyrics for later verses will not export correctly.
  
• Purchase popular public domain hymns in MusicXML format directly from us.

Pre-editing  Content

If you need to edit files to remove non-supported features (listed below), and you aren't ready to spring for $$$ pro apps like Finale, Sibelius or Dorico, then you can get MuseScore for free on Windows, Mac & Linux, which opens & saves MusicXML files.  Follow the best practice guide to make sure SingAccord will recognize implicit features.

Why  pick  musicXML ?

While I'd love to support importing every conceivable music file format there is, there are many practical limitations.  For initial launch, I decided to pick 1 file format which met my requirements.  That is MusicXML.  In the table below, I've listed a dozen music file formats and marked whether they do or don't support specific requirements.  Because all music notation apps, Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, MuseScore, Logic Pro X & others, can export to MusicXML, all professionally-written music content can be exported into MusicXML.

The biggest take away is that almost everyone sells .pdf files of "sheet music".  Unfortunately, since .pdf's files do not actually contain music notation data, but merely contain pictures of music notation, they won't work for importing rhythm & pitch.  Expensive and poorly-performing OMR "Optical Music Recognition" attempt to read such files, and many of them export MusicXML, but almost always require some clean-up.   Some proprietary file formats are also quite popular, but require the user to purchase an additional $$$ program to open (and they could be exported to MusicXML by the content publisher).

SingAccord supports storing song files internally and externally, for instance in a folder that's sync'd with the cloud, like the DropBox Mac sync app.

Both Finale & Sibelius Ultimate can batch convert all files in a given folder into MusicXML from a single menu command.