Towards a Useful Set of Use Cases

Hi all,

This is a very brief follow-up to Michael Good's post earlier today
regarding the update to our agenda.

I will now be working with the CG co-chairs and membership to document a
set of use cases for MusicXML that cover both present and future. I expect
to have an initial draft set of cases by the beginning of next week on the
Wiki, to seed that discussion. It will be a "starter kit" to which much
will be added.

Let me say a bit more about what "use cases" mean to me. I'm talking about
descriptions of things that someone would want to do with a notation
format: effectively, a story about how it is (or could be) used. The use
cases are about people and music: they are emphatically *not* about
MusicXML itself. We will use these cases to help us understand where
MusicXML is helpful, and where it is not. For that matter, we can use the
very same cases to understand where MEI, IEEE 1599, and other formats are
helpful, and where they are not. In effect, these cases are a lens to help
us focus on where MusicXML should change, and to identify ideas from other
standards efforts that can be applied.

Here's a small example use case: "Performer wants to view only her own
music from a larger ensemble score, optimized for her personal
performance."  We are trying to state a problem in a human/musical context.
As a counterexample, we'll want to stay away from concrete proposals like,
"Allow the <part> element to have new child elements describing the
full-score format and individual-part format.". That's a possible solution,
not a problem.

Up front, also, let me say that use cases are not just about the present.
They are about the future things we all would like to do with notation
formats. But the future cannot be unlimited, and a standard needs to be
standardized. I hope it's obvious that we will not be able to address every
proposed use case in this group, which would result in our accomplishing
very little. Along with the development of use cases, an understanding on
the scoping of this effort must emerge. However, I think there's great
value in soliciting lots of use cases up front and filtering them later on.

For now, I have a temporary request: please let's not all jump in and
contribute our favorite use cases just yet (of course, many of you already
have, in effect, and we'll want to farm the posts that have already
occurred). I know there is a lot of pent up desire to get this going. We
just need to get a head start on setting up a good framework and a good
direction, and it will not take long.

I'm excited about this.

Best,

.            .       .    .  . ...Joe

*Joe Berkovitz*
President

*Noteflight LLC*
49R Day Street / Somerville, MA 02144 / USA
phone: +1 978 314 6271
www.noteflight.com
"Your music, everywhere"