Re: traditional Japanese music notation

Hi Razvan, Daniel, all,

You might like to take a look at
http://shakuscore.fluteywind.com/handbookeng/

This is the English handbook for an application, that converts MusicXML 
to shakuhashi or shinobue notation.

Razvan and his font are mentioned in the acknowledgements, but the 
application is actually written by Hiro Kisai Sato.

The handbook shows how MusicXML files can, in principle, be converted to 
Japanese notations, so its a good starting point for understanding how 
such notations work. It also shows that Asian notations are definitely 
in scope for this Contact Group.

Some further remarks:
1. The penultimate section of the handbook lists the MusicXML object 
types supported by the program.
2. The notehead characters
     a) seem to be a kind of tablature, denoting fingerings.
     b) maintain their orientation when the score is rotated from 
horizontal to vertical.
3. This application uses symbols that probably don't exist in more 
traditional notations (e.g. metronome marks and tuplets), but the core 
symbols are still treated in the traditional way.
4. Scores can be saved in the application's native format, or exported 
as PDF or SVG.

Is there anyone else on this list, or elsewhere, who could help or 
complement Razvan's work? I'm sure he would welcome any help he can get! :-)

That's all for now. I really just wanted to share the link.

All the best,
James



Am 11.11.2016 um 00:45 schrieb Razvan BEURAN:
> Dear Daniel,
>
> Thank you for your interest in my proposal to integrate Japanese music notation in SMuFL. I am well aware of the lack of information about Japanese music in the Western world, although some references do exist in English as well. For instance the comprehensive "Composing for Japanese Instruments" by Minoru Miki, although this book takes the Western composer perspective, so it doesn't contain so much information about the traditional notation itself.
>
> Let me quickly answer your questions now:
>
> 1. Are any of the symbols used in these traditional music notations
>    already encoded as part of the Unicode standard?
>
> For shakuhachi, most pitches (fingering) representations use one Japanese syllabary called Katakana, so they are part of Unicode, although non-standard representations are used for some of them. Specific interpretation techniques (vibrato, etc.) use specific representations that are not part of Unicode. Western music notation is also used for some aspects (staccato, tenuto, dynamics, etc.) so already part of SMuFL. The situation is very similar for koto/shamisen as well.
>
> 2. Roughly how many symbols are there that would need encoding?
>
> For shakuhachi I would say there are roughly several tens of new symbols in total that need to be added to SMuFL. Similarly for koto/shamisen (but completely different symbols).
>
> 3. Are you able to produce a proposal outlining the characters that
>    need to be included?
>
> I shall try to do this first of all for shakuhachi by using the SMuFL resource that James pointed out as a reference (http://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/specification/classes.html). Please note that it may take some weeks to get this done, since I am only doing it as a hobby.
>
> By the way, to be honest, I am not so confident I can do this kind of classification thoroughly for koto/shamisen, so I would prefer to restrict myself to shakuhachi for the moment. Once I have put together a proposal I'll get back to you on the mailing list.
>
> Best wishes,
> Razvan
>
>
> On 2016/11/10 10:11, Daniel Spreadbury wrote:
>> Razvan BEURAN<beuranr@gmail.com>  wrote on 31/10/2016 14:18:31:
>>
>>> I am contacting you to see if there is interest in extending SMuFL to
>>> cover traditional Japanese music notation. I am knowledgeable especially
>>> about the Tozan shakuhachi notation, which could be a good start.
>>> Moreover, the Tozan school publishes an official manual (in Japanese)
>>> which could serve as reference.
>> Thanks for getting in touch, Razvan. In principle I have no objection to
>> considering the encoding of the symbols needed for Japanese music
>> notation as in scope for SMuFL.
>>
>> I am a complete neophyte when it comes to the worlds of shamisen,
>> shakuhachi, and koto notation, and I am also not able to read Japanese
>> text myself. Looking at the examples of the grid-based shakuhachi
>> notation you have produced with your own software, I'm sorry to say that
>> my ignorance is such that I cannot determine which characters, if any,
>> are musical ones, and which are standard Japanese characters.
>>
>> Some initial questions:
>>
>> 1. Are any of the symbols used in these traditional music notations
>> already encoded as part of the Unicode standard?
>> 2. Roughly how many symbols are there that would need encoding?
>> 3. Are you able to produce a proposal outlining the characters that need
>> to be included?
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
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>> Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, Frankenstrasse 18b, D-20097 Hamburg,
>> Germany
>>
>> Phone: +49 (40) 21035-0 | Fax: +49 (40) 21035-300 |www.steinberg.net
>>
>> President: Andreas Stelling | Managing Director: Thomas Schöpe, Hirofumi
>> Osawa
>>
>> Registration Court: Hamburg HRB 86534
>>
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-- 
http://james-ingram-act-two.de
https://github.com/notator

Received on Tuesday, 15 November 2016 10:04:28 UTC