README.md

---
license:
  - mit
  - cc-by-nc-sa-4.0
  - other
task_categories:
  - text-to-audio
  - other
language:
  - en
tags:
  - music
  - abc
  - sheet-music
  - symbolic-music
  - text-to-music
  - text-to-score
  - music-generation

pretty_name: Text2Score ABC Notation Dataset
size_categories:
  - 100K<n<1M
viewer: false
---

# Text2Score ABC Notation Dataset

A large-scale symbolic music dataset in ABC notation, curated to support text-driven sheet music generation. Released as part of the [**Text2Score**](https://keshavbhandari.github.io/portfolio/text2score) project.

[![Paper](https://img.shields.io/badge/Paper-arXiv-b31b1b)](https://arxiv.org)
[![Code](https://img.shields.io/badge/Code-GitHub-181717?logo=github)](https://github.com/keshavbhandari/text2score)
[![Demo](https://img.shields.io/badge/Demo-Page-4c9be8)](https://keshavbhandari.github.io/portfolio/text2score)


## 🚀 Download & Install Dataset

```bash
pip install -U huggingface_hub hf-transfer
export HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER=1
huggingface-cli download datasets/mimbres/text2score --local-dir ABC_Dataset
cd ABC_Dataset
tar xf ABC_Dataset_only_abci_pkl_json.tar
```


## 📖 Dataset Description

This dataset comprises **621,162 pieces in ABC notation**, assembled from multiple sources via MIDI-to-ABC conversion (quantized MIDI only, for training quality), direct XML-to-ABC conversion, and publicly available online repositories. The collection spans a broad range of genres and instrumentation, including chamber music, symphonies, film soundtracks, folk tunes, choral works, and solo instrument pieces.

| Source | Count |
|---|---|
| ABC Notation Data | 316,118 |
| PDMX Dataset | 253,339 |
| SymphonyNet (Contemporary MIDI) | 45,629 |
| Wikifonia Dataset | 6,076 |
| ASAP Dataset | 234 |
| **Total** | **621,162** |


## 📝 Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite our paper (BibTeX to be updated upon arXiv release):

```bibtex
@article{bhandari2025text2score,
  title     = {Text2Score: Generating Sheet Music from Textual Prompts},
  author    = {Bhandari, Keshav and Chang, Sungkyun and Roy, Abhinaba and Ronchini, Francesca and Benetos, Emmanouil and Herremans, Dorien and Colton, Simon},
  journal   = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.13431},
  year      = {2026},
  url       = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13431}
}
```


## ⚖️ License

This dataset is a composite assembled from multiple sources. **Each source carries its own license — users must comply with all applicable terms for the subsets they use.** Full license texts are provided in the [`LICENSES/`](./LICENSES/) directory of this repository.

| Source | License | Full text |
|---|---|---|
| PDMX Dataset | MIT | [`LICENSES/LICENSE_PDMX.txt`](./LICENSES/LICENSE_PDMX.txt) |
| SymphonyNet (Contemporary MIDI) | MIT | [`LICENSES/LICENSE_SYMPHONYNET.txt`](./LICENSES/LICENSE_SYMPHONYNET.txt) |
| ASAP Dataset | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 | [`LICENSES/LICENSE_ASAP.txt`](./LICENSES/LICENSE_ASAP.txt) |
| Wikifonia / EWLD | Non-commercial, restricted access ⚠️ | [`LICENSES/LICENSE_WIKIFONIA.txt`](./LICENSES/LICENSE_WIKIFONIA.txt) |
| ABC Notation Data (converted) | Varies by piece; see `LICENSE` for details | — |

> ⚠️ **Wikifonia / EWLD notice:** The original EWLD dataset on Zenodo is **restricted-access** and requires users to explicitly agree to non-commercial terms before obtaining access. Redistribution of EWLD-derived content may not be permitted without authorisation from the original author; users should independently verify compliance. A public-domain subset is available as [OpenEWLD](https://github.com/00sapo/OpenEWLD).
>
> ⚠️ **Overall constraint:** The most restrictive licenses in this composite (ASAP: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; Wikifonia: non-commercial only) mean the **full dataset may only be used for non-commercial research purposes**. For commercial use, restrict to the PDMX and SymphonyNet subsets (both MIT-licensed).

See [`LICENSE`](./LICENSE) at the root of this repository for a full composite summary.