MNX-Common Layout Model

Hi all,

One of our major topics for our Frankfurt meeting is to explore how we
might standardize the layout of Common Western Music Notation. This emerged
as an important theme during our NAMM meeting in January, at which multiple
members expressed a strong interest in making detailed layout decisions
highly portable between applications, with little or no loss of engraving
style. Music publishers and engravers were particularly vocal on this
subject.

The goal of such an effort would not be to force all applications to give
music an identical appearance, of course. Rather, the goal would be for a
producer application to encode the information that governs its particular
layout decisions, in such a way that a consumer application can reliably
reproduce the look of the music despite reflowing, further editing, and so
on.

As a way of jump-starting the conversation and giving us a common
vocabulary, I'll be presenting some slides at NAMM that lay out some
possible approaches and a language for talking about them. The co-chairs
felt it would be a good idea to get this out there before the meeting so
folks have a chance to digest. You can access the presentation here:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UENOaOSboNjdImDhmxbS1TrcM5gnJoqSOXb7w1lcVCY/edit?usp=sharing

The CG contains many experts who have worked on music layout, and I hope
that no one will take this as a prescription to approach the subject in one
particular way. However, I believe that beginning with a common vocabulary
and perspective can help us examine the larger issues in play, even if we
are not agreed on the details.

I have also added this link to issue 13 (
https://github.com/w3c/mnx/issues/13) which tracks the overall topic.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you all in Frankfurt!

Best,
.            .       .    .  . ...Joe

Joe Berkovitz
Risible LLC