Nowadays, the computer is an important instrument in music. It can not only generate sound (audio synthesis) but is also able to perform a wide range of time consuming and repetitive tasks, such as transposition and part extraction, with speed and accuracy. However, a score must be represented in a machine-readable format before any operation can be carried out. Current input methods, such as using an electronic keyboard, are laborious and require human intervention. Optical Music Recognition (OMR) provides an efficient and automatic method to transform paper-based music scores into a machine representation. The potential benefits of an Optical Music Recognition system were recognised over thirty years ago. A robust OMR system can provide a convenient and time-saving input method to transform paper-based music scores into a machine readable format for widely available music software, in the same way as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is useful for text processing applications. In this paper, we present a brief survey of Optical Music Recognition developments and currently available commercial packages for printed music scores, followed by an introduction to handwritten manuscript recognition with a discussion of the obstacles associated with it. We then discuss our framework design and low-level pre-processing modules, and illustrate the modules with example inputs and outputs. Our prototype takes a digitised music-score grey image (300 d.p.i. with 256 grey) as input. An iterative thresholding method is used to obtain a threshold value, and the image is binarised. Using the black and white image, the skew of the input image, usually introduced during digitisation process, can be automatically detected by reference to the music-typographical features of the roughly parallel stave lines, and the image is deskewed by rotation. This is follow by layout analysis to determine the general normalisation factors including the stave line thickness. Stave line thickness and inter-stave-line spacing are used as normalisation factors, as stave lines form a grid system for musical symbols, of which most are related to the geometry of the staves: for example, the height of a note head must approximate the distance between two stave lines plus the thickness of the two stave lines. Hence, the sum of average distance between two stave lines and the average stave-line thickness form the fundamental unit used by the classification process. This paper focuses on our stroke-based segmentation approach using a hybrid of edge detection technique and mathematical morphology. We make use of the edges, curvature and variations in relative thickness to extract and segment the musical objects from the underlying grid (stave lines) and disassemble them into lower-level graphical primitives, such as vertical and horizontal lines, curves, ellipses and others. These primitives are classified using a k-Nearest-Neighbour (kNN) classifier with simple features such as the aspect ratio, normalised width and height and other feature vectors. After recognition, these sub-segmented primitives need to be reconstructed. As with other forms of optical document analysis, such as OCR, imperfections introduced during the printing and digitising process that are normally tolerable to the human eye can often complicated the recognition process. Musical notation is highly interconnected, and features may connect horizontally (for example beams), vertically (for example chords) or sometimes be overlaid (for example, slurs cutting through stems or bar lines). Furthermore, when symbols are grouped (beamed), they may vary in shape and size: for example, consider the shape of isolated semiquavers and the many possible appearances of four-semiquaver groups. To resolve any ambiguities, contextual information is required, for example, a dot, classified by the kNN classifier, could be an expression sign or a duration modifier depending on its relative position with respect to a note-head nearby. After classification and reconstruction, basic musical syntax and a number of high level musical analysis techniques are employed to enhance the recognition, the reconstructed results are re-examined in the light of the analysis and corrections and enhanced guesses are made if necessary. We attempt to detect global information such as the key and time signatures and use them to provide evidence in the detection and correction of possible mis-recognition. It is clearly important that the OMR system should accurately detect the time signature of a piece or section of a piece of music in order to produce an accurate representation of the musical score. Many factors in the input source (for example, resolution, contrast, and other inherent complexities) could influence the performance of the automatic recognition and transcription process, especially for handwritten manuscripts. In order to provide flexible and efficient transcriptions, we are designing a graphical user-interface editor with built-in basic musical syntax and some contextual intelligence to resolve uncertainties, assist the transcription and output. The default output format is currently set to ExpMIDI, which is compatible with the standard MIDI file format, and is capable of representing and storing expressive symbols such as accents, phrase markings and others. We believe that the application of domain knowledge essential for complex document analysis and recognition and it is particularly important in hand-written-manuscript recognition since it takes years of experience for a trained copyist or engraver to intelligently decipher poorly or inconsistently written scores.