Recognition of Pen-Based Music Notation: the HOMUS dataset

A profitable way of digitizing a new musical composition is by using a pen-based (online) system, in which the score is created with the sole effort of the composition itself. However, the development of such systems is still largely unexplored. Some studies have been carried out but the use of particular little datasets has led to avoid objective comparisons between different approaches. To solve this situation, this work presents the Handwritten Online Musical Symbols (HOMUS) dataset, which consists of 15200 samples of 32 types of musical symbols from 100 different musicians. Several alternatives of recognition for the two modalities - online, using the strokes drawn by the pen, and offline, using the image generated after drawing the symbol-are also presented. Some experiments are included aimed to draw main conclusions about the recognition of these data. It is expected that this work can establish a binding point in the field of recognition of online handwritten music notation and serve as a baseline for future developments.