For those of us using a flat-bed scanner and PhotoShop to scan/edit piano rolls,
here is an idea I'm exploring: What about using the same encoding as the old
teletype systems, i.e. the ITA2 5-bit format? It includes the upper case
alphabet, numbers, and a few punctuations, but I think that's all we need for
song lyrics.

An example is shown on my google web site:

http://sites.google.com/a/wildblue.net/hgwalters

along with a few MIDI files I've scanned using the PhotoShop method.

A small program written in GWBasic converts the text to the bit-patterns, which
are then manually placed on the image; not difficult if you use a 1/9" by 1/9"
grid overlay with PhotoShop.

I'm using the spaces above the 88th note (#90-94); and Warren Trachtman's
"RollScanConverter" program captures these notes as D 7 to F#7 without any
apparent problems.

A MIDI File Disassembler program such as the one by Jeff Glatt ("MidiDsm") would
make it fairly easy to convert the "notes" to lyrics using another GWBasic
program, working on the text version of the MIDI file.

Has anyone else used this approach?

Hank Walters
Cottage Grove, OR