RE: The MusicXML challenge

On Fri, November 6, 2015 5:44 am, Jan Rosseel wrote:
> But let me state it not-so-friendly, but clear: if MusicXML must succeed as
> a format for storage and exchange, we can only cover the "normal" music.
> Normal meaning: music being notated in well-defined ways. Ways that are
> standard already outside of MusicXML and that are directly understood by the
> vast majority of musicians. Something should only be considered for adding
> to MusicXML when it is already a standard way of notating things with pen
> and paper in a significant part of the musical society.

I entirely disagree with this philosophy. This statement seeks to ignore over
a half-century of existing notational practices (practices that, for composers
and experienced practitioners of music past 1950, are "normal").

If a regressive approach is taken in creating a standard, then the composers
and performers who actually drive notational development will simply and
properly walk away. Being exiled from the standard, they will ignore it
(including the 'good bits') and continue with their individual approaches.

Certainly a standards group gets to cherry-pick which elements to include, but
its resulting partial 'standard' will correctly be ignored by those who
actually engage in current practice (including graphical notation,
sonification, algorithmic notation, etc.).

Standards are necessarily prescriptive. But before they can do that, they must
be sufficiently descriptive -- identifying what was *and is* in use. Just
because such identification and description are difficult does not mean these
elements may be safely ignored for the sake of convenience.

(I refer again to "Notations", "Notation in New Music", "Notations21" and
"SoundVisions" as starting points.)

Dennis

Received on Monday, 9 November 2015 16:42:51 UTC