Re: How to get involved

Hi Douglas

Microtone accidentals are supported by MusicXML see https://usermanuals.musicxml.com/MusicXML/Content/ST-MusicXML-accidental-value.htm <https://usermanuals.musicxml.com/MusicXML/Content/ST-MusicXML-accidental-value.htm>

MuseScore accepts all or most of these.

James Sutton
Dolphin Computing
www.dolphin-com.co.uk <http://www.dolphin-com.co.uk/>
www.seescore.co.uk <http://www.seescore.co.uk/>
www.playscore.co <http://www.playscore.co/>




> On 13 May 2020, at 20:30, Douglas Blumeyer <douglas.blumeyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thank you for the kind and speedy reply Mogens.
> 
> I have seen the documentation for <accidental> <https://usermanuals.musicxml.com/MusicXML/Content/EL-MusicXML-accidental.htm> but it seems to only accept a few contents: 'sharp', 'flat', 'natural', 'double-sharp', and 'flat-flat'. I confirmed this myself. When I try to change the contents of that tag to anything other than one of those values, MuseScore says it is not a valid MusicXML file anymore.
> 
> Interestingly, the <accidental> tag seems to be completely irrelevant. If I have the <alter>1</alter> and <accidental>flat</accidental>, I will see a sharp. And if I have <alter>-1</alter> and <accidental>sharp</accidental>, I see a flat. I can leave off the <accidental> tag completely and I will just see whatever the <alter> is set to. If I leave off the <alter> tag but include <accidental>, then no accidental shows up!
> 
> I don't expect <accidental> to support something like 'Sagittal-sharp-25S-down' right now. But it might be nice if it could support arbitrary unicode code points. That, combined with the fact that it accepts a font, would allow me to use it for Sagittal and other microtonal accidentals. Assuming that there is a way to get <accidental> to work at all.
> 
> On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 12:26 AM mogens@lundholm.org <mailto:mogens@lundholm.org> <mogens@lundholm.org <mailto:mogens@lundholm.org>> wrote:
> Hello
> 
> In MusicXML all pitches can be specified with the <alter>-command. And 
> accidentals
> with the <accidental>-command. But as you write, Finale and Musescore 
> will "correct" the
> notes and not preserve, what you wrote. However - I found out that I 
> could make two versions
> of the tune: One with the right pitches and one print-version, where 
> pitches and accidentals are changed in order to make it look right in 
> Musescore and print (Impossible in Finale). But MusicXML is OK.
> In principle so simple - reality something else. For MNX - microtones 
> are not allowed.
> 
> Kind regards
> Mogens
> 
> On 2020-05-12 22:34, Douglas Blumeyer wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am a new member here. Thank you all in advance for being patient 
> > with me as I ramp up.
> >
> > I see that quite a bit of activity is occurring right now with respect 
> > both to MusicXML and MNX. I am a software engineer and new music 
> > composer. I write my music in code and occasionally wish to generate 
> > traditional sheet music for humans to take a crack at the pieces. But 
> > they are in alternative tuning systems and it would be great if I 
> > could flip an enum around in my code to export as MusicXML with 
> > various microtonal notations. However I haven't had luck with this in 
> > the past because it doesn't seem MusicXML has support for many common 
> > microtonal notations.
> >
> > And when I've used notation software to export and import MusicXML in 
> > the recent past, even just exporting and immediately re-importing 
> > without making any changes, the format garbles my work to the point of 
> > unusability (that or it's MuseScore which can't translate my work into 
> > MusicXML well).
> >
> > I want to do whatever I can to help make this happen but I don't know 
> > where to start. As a member of this list am I a "co-chair" and can I 
> > thus attend the next upcoming meeting? Please let me know how I can 
> > best contribute. I have no sense of the political situation here yet 
> > so I do not mean to offend or start a fire or anything like that. Just 
> > curious at this point.
> >
> > Best,
> > Douglas Blumeyer
>