Re: The MusicXML challenge and Chords

Am 26.10.2015 um 07:23 schrieb mogens@lundholm.org:
>
> I think the music should be the base, the graphic appearance an addition.
> (Like MIDI: notes are "events", other stuff is "metaevents"). But this is MusicXML,
> and we must be pragmatic.
>


There you have a fundamental question.  To quote L Peter Deutsch's post:


Am 20.10.2015 um 07:51 schrieb L Peter Deutsch:
> MusicXML is first of all (1) a format for representing
> printed scores, [...] I have seen no
> evidence that it cannot have clarity and completeness about the *semantic
> and general visual relationships* of the elements it names.


So what do we want MusicXML to be?  Should the core structure be representing the semantics of playback or rendering?  I think this really needs clarification.  I have a very clear opinion about that: MusicXML should first and foremost facilitate notation for the following reasons:


* MusicXML's original killer feature is enabling exchange between music notation software.
* MIDI is the established standard for playback.
* It's easy to extract playback information from notation data, but not vice versa.
* Rendering is hard, properly conveying semantics needed for rendering as well. For this, we need sound foundations that we mustn't trade for minor playback facilitations.


Concerning chords this means I fully agree with L Peter Deutsch's concerns and suggestions.  Aggregating notes in a chord incidentally also seems to be what notation programs happen to do anyway (single notes commonly being treated as one-note chords):


Sibelius:
http://www.sibelius.com/download/documentation/pdfs/sibelius710-manuscript-en.pdf#page=87

Finale (apparently - link is a third party framework):
http://www.finaletips.nu/frameworkref/class_f_c_note_entry.html

MuseScore:
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/blob/master/mtest/libmscore/selectionfilter/selectionfilter17-base-ref.xml#L7

Capella:
http://www.capella.de/download/mehr/workshops/capxml.pdf#page=2

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Thomas Weber
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Received on Monday, 26 October 2015 08:28:52 UTC