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91pu provides online sheet music in uniform format

Vincent Mao, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES Asia 0

91pu, a website providing online sheet music in uniform format for instrument players and singers, has accumulated about 200,000 members and reached 6.6 million person-visits a month, according to Wang Han, CEO for the site's operator Hima Music Studio.

Most online sheet music is so personalized that music score layout and formatting varies from some users to others and thus not easy to be familiarized, Wang said, adding for iPad-based electronic sheet music, switching of pages may affect music performance.

Hima, to solve these problems, rearranges and lay out anews music scores to make sheet music in uniform formats, Wang indicated.

As compared with other online sheet music websites, 91up features transposition functions of raising or lowering pitch by providing 12 tones for users to choose the optimal ones, a main reason for the website to become attractive, Wang explained.

Hima plans to develop 91pu into a platform for co-creation of music using new technologies, Wang said. Members of an orchestra usuaully have to arrange times and places for practice, but 5G can enable them to simultaneously practice online at separate places; blockchain technology can be used to establish a profit-sharing system among all contributors to music production, Wang noted.

Music creation is an ecosystem comprising experts in musical composition, lyrics, instrument playing, singing and extension to addition of music to video and production of music video, Wang indicated. Linking of these segments in the supply chain relied on brokers in the past, but now social media platforms can play the linking role to provide brand-new room for creating music, Wang noted.

In addition, Hima keeps watching possible application of AI and IoT sensors to playing of musical instruments and improving efficiency in manual arrangement and layout of music scores, Wang said.

A startup supported by the Taipei City Government, 91up hopes to raise NT$10 million (US$328,000) in seed-round fund raising over the next two years, Wang indicated.

Hima Music Studio CEO Wang Han

Hima Music Studio CEO Wang Han
Photo: Vincent Mao, Digitimes, December 2019