Re: MNX proposal §1.2

Hi Matt,

Certainly, taking on too much is always a danger worth watching out for and
I think that some skepticism is completely warranted. There should be a
good reason why everything is there. And I'm sure I have made some
mistakes, so I expect (even hope) that we will prune features from MNX in
the long run.

But... "racing off a cliff"? I think not. Let me at least say a few things
in defense of the points you critiqued -- and I hope to speak more in
Frankfurt.

- A key element of MNX is profiles, which will identify exactly which
features in the spec are required to be used in a given context. This is a
very important tool for keeping the spec manageable. SVG and
files-on-the-side are, to me, quite likely to be optional features that are
not part of the standard MNX profile.

- MNX is not based on anyone's application back end, much less mine. There
is no intent that MNX act as a back end of music editors. It is truly an
attempt to answer the needs of bona fide use cases, including exchange. But
the fact is that at this juncture, the notation community needs more than
an exchange format, particularly the publishing side.

- The clear separation of semantic, appearance and interpretation layers by
use of CSS makes it much easier for applications to determine where musical
content ends and visual/performance data begins. In many cases, the latter
layers may not even be imported/exported.

- The MNX proposal supports only a fraction of the use cases that we
identified, and I do not think it should support them all.

- Many of the most complex features of MusicXML's core are simplified by
MNX. There is a serious attempt here to make the "unwieldiness quotient" go
down, not up.

Anyway, I'm not trying to persuade you at this stage, just offering a
response and looking forward to a spirited discussion!

Best,

.            .       .    .  . ...Joe

Joe Berkovitz
Founder
Noteflight LLC

49R Day Street
Somerville MA 02144
USA

"Bring music to life"
www.noteflight.com

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Matthew James Briggs <
matthew.james.briggs@gmail.com> wrote:

> Michael's point is a good one.  However, my main concern with MNX, based
> on the discussion thread and proposal, is that it is trying to do too
> much.  I think one of the problems with MusicXML was that it tried to
> accommodate too many use cases and in so doing became unwieldy to the point
> that no one could properly implement all of it's features.  I could be
> wrong, but I don't think there is any application that has ever been
> created that can use all of MusicXML's features, and this seems to me to be
> a flaw in the specification.
>
> MNX, with it's introduction of SVG, embedded files, files on the side,
> CSS, etc, appears to be quickly racing off of the edge of the same cliff
> and I wonder how many applications will jump on board.  It feels a little
> bit like Joe is describing how his application's backend will work instead
> of describing a music notation data exchange format.
>
> I wonder if Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, Lilypond and Komp (us), are going
> to stick with MusicXML or else need to come up with something better suited
> to exchanging notation data between them.
>
> Sorry to be a skeptic, but I might as well signal that I will be playing
> that role at Messe.  I'm looking forward to meeting all of you nonetheless.
>
> Thanks!
> Matt
>
>
>
>
> .mjb
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:12 AM, Michael Good <mgood@makemusic.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi James,
>>
>> You are leaving out the main dish: it is semantic, and not spatial or
>> temporal.
>>
>> I don't see how a computer file could include the main dish. The
>> semantics are located in the readers' minds, and computers have no access
>> to minds. Nobody really knowns how and why brains interpret the world in
>> terms of space and time. Performance practice traditions are an exclusively
>> *human* undertaking, and are what real music making is all about.
>>
>>
>> I don’t think what you’ve written has been accurate since at least the
>> 1950s if not earlier. Today computers and humans perform music together all
>> the time. Computers have been representing musical semantics for a long
>> time. There are hundreds of existing music applications that use MusicXML
>> today to represent musical semantics in a way that can be shared with other
>> applications. That includes applications that listen to human performers
>> and communicate with them in semantic terms.
>>
>> If you look at the list at http://www.musicxml.com/software/ you will
>> see a wide range of applications that are used for composing, performing,
>> teaching, studying, preparing, analyzing, and finding music. The vast
>> majority of these rely on a semantic representation of music. Many of the
>> people behind those applications are members of this community group.
>>
>> I think we need to understand and value the work of the different members
>> of this group in order to have productive conversations. If we all think
>> only of the needs of our particular application and not at all of the needs
>> of other applications, it will be difficult to make any progress.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Michael Good
>> VP of MusicXML Technologies
>> MakeMusic, Inc.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>