Music Clipboard

Music Clipboard with (optional) AI integration helps you capture, transfer, and edit music regions within or across DAWs/notation software. The program supports extraction optimized for cross-DAW transfer and translates music to text for language models.

Music Clipboard was built with both technical and non-technical musicians in mind, after the setup below the GUI requires no coding or terminal usage.

Currently up for macOS, Windows version is being updated.

Quickstart

Run these commands from the repository root (music_clipboard_ai/).

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Minimal Setup for electron_ui

If you only want to run the Electron UI, from the repository root:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd src/music_clipboard/electron_ui/app
npm install
npm start

Electron + FastAPI App (New)

The new desktop app lives at:

• src/music_clipboard/electron_ui/app (Electron Forge + React + TypeScript)
• src/music_clipboard/electron_ui/backend (FastAPI local backend)

Run the desktop app in development

From repository root:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd src/music_clipboard/electron_ui/app
npm install
npm start

The Electron main process will start the local FastAPI backend automatically on 127.0.0.1 with an ephemeral port and token.

Package the desktop app

From src/music_clipboard/electron_ui/app:

source ../../../../venv/bin/activate
pip install pyinstaller
npm run bundle:backend
npm run package

bundle:backend produces a bundled backend executable in backend-dist/, and Forge packages it as an app resource.

Backend API (v1)

• GET /api/v1/health
• POST /api/v1/extract
• POST /api/v1/midi/export
• POST /api/v1/ai/openai/edit-midi
• GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}
• GET /api/v1/jobs/{job_id}/events (SSE)

Launch the GUI:

scripts/macos/run_gui.sh

Or launch directly with Python (cross-platform):

PYTHONPATH="$(pwd)/src:$(pwd)" python3 -m music_clipboard.gui.app

Start the global hotkey listener:

scripts/macos/run_hotkey_listener.sh

Or launch directly with Python:

PYTHONPATH="$(pwd)/src:$(pwd)" python3 -m music_clipboard.automation.hotkey_listener

Platform Commands

macOS

GUI launcher:

scripts/macos/run_gui.sh

Hotkey listener:

scripts/macos/run_hotkey_listener.sh

Windows

GUI launcher:

scripts\\windows\\run_gui.bat

Hotkey listener:

scripts\\windows\\run_hotkey_listener.bat

Python module alternatives (PowerShell):

$env:PYTHONPATH = "$PWD\\src;$PWD"
python -m music_clipboard.gui.app
python -m music_clipboard.automation.hotkey_listener

Outputs

Generated files are written to:

• data/outputs/text for extracted pitch text files
• data/outputs/midi for exported MIDI files

During transition, legacy output folders may still be read if present:

• clipboard-full/txts
• clipboard-full/midis

Feature Reference

• AI-integrated workflow: copy/export extracted musical material into AI editing flows from the GUI
  • Supports editing within cross-DAW transfer
• Hotkey automation: global shortcut listener to trigger save-selection workflows
• Inputs: MuseScore .mscx and .mscz scores (plus MIDI handling in app workflows)
• Pitch extraction: note names from score content (for example C4, F#5)
• Position-aware extraction: note names with measure/beat locations (for example M12:3.50)
• MIDI export: MIDI generation from MuseScore scores

MuseScore MCP Integration

This repository also includes a MuseScore MCP integration under:

• src/music_clipboard/integrations/musescore_mcp

Entry points:

• src/music_clipboard/integrations/musescore_mcp/mcp_server.py
• src/music_clipboard/integrations/musescore_mcp/musescore_mcp_websocket.qml

For setup and usage, see:

• src/music_clipboard/integrations/musescore_mcp/README.md

Legacy Compatibility

clipboard-full/MAC and clipboard-full/WIN are legacy transitional wrappers. They remain in the repo for compatibility, but new usage should prefer src/music_clipboard modules and scripts/macos / scripts/windows launchers.

Acknowledgements

The MuseScore MCP integration in this codebase was originally based on ghchen99/mcp-musescore and then integrated and modified in this repository.