Score Perfect converter rescues a father's music files

His father’s scores were still on disk, but trapped in discontinued software. Rather than re-enter them, Maarten Tromp spent a few months of work spread across four years decoding Score Perfect files. On November 12, he published spp2musicxml, an open-source converter. The old program’s sole developer died in 2012, leaving migration to its users.

His father had used Score Perfect since its first version, initially on an Atari and later on Windows. Simply opening the program was only part of the problem: Tromp found that its MusicXML export preserved notes but dropped chords and lyrics. MusicXML is an open exchange format for notation software, a shared handover document for scores. A common format is useful only if the handover includes the information musicians need, rather than transferring a melody and leaving its words and accompaniment behind.

The resulting converter has graphical and command-line interfaces, requires Python 3.11 or later, and has been tested on Windows and Linux. Tromp says all 345 scores in his sample collection open in MuseScore 4.7 after conversion. The tool handles files from Score Perfect versions 1 through 7 and preserves lyrics, chord symbols and numerous performance markings. The output remains editable musical data, avoiding the task of printing old scores as pictures and entering them again.

His method resembles decoding private shorthand without a dictionary: change one thing and inspect which saved bytes change with it. Comparing a different clef or notehead on screen helps connect numbers to musical symbols. Later, Claude Code helped analyze his notes, examine patterns and generate scripts to operate the old program and produce more test scores. Tromp still investigated the patterns, changed parameters and compared images. An original demonstration score showing different musical objects individually supplied another reference.

The escape route has gaps. Page layout, tablature and drum staves are outside the current conversion support, some markings are skipped, and the 1988 predecessor format is unsupported. Users still need to inspect complicated scores after migration. Tromp has made his own code and format documentation public so others can extend the work. Another backup and another migration route solve different preservation problems: one prevents losing a file, while the other helps it remain usable after its original application is gone.

Original source published: Maarten Tromp, November 12, 2026.