Proposed CG Agenda Changes [via Music Notation Community Group]

Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful discussion of the agenda for the Music
Notation Community Group. We have posted a summary of the discussion on the CG
Wiki at https://www.w3.org/community/music-notation/wiki/Agenda_Discussion. In
this post, the co-chairs would like to bring this discussion back to its effect
on the short-term and long-term agenda of the group.

Our initial proposal for an agenda contained four short-term and three long-term
projects:

Short Term:

 Document music notation use cases
 Build an initial MusicXML specification
 Add support for use of SMuFL glyphs within MusicXML
 Identify and fix any remaining gaps or adoption barriers in SMuFL

Long Term:

 Improve formatting support in MusicXML
 Build a complete MusicXML specification document
 Add Document Object Model (DOM) manipulation and interactivity to MusicXML.

Looking at the discussion, we saw a clear emphasis on the need for use cases, as
well as the need to address foundational and structural issues in MusicXML.
After reviewing all the responses, the co-chairs agree that these two areas
deserve top priority, and that it makes sense to treat them sequentially. First
we should focus on developing, refining and filtering a set of use cases for our
notation format. After we have adopted a solid set of use cases, we can then
turn to the foundational/structural issues in the standard with a much better
shared understanding of our goals.

We believe document format discussions are best driven by use cases, expressed
in terms of the needs and actions of different classes of users, as well as the
nature and contents of the documents involved. Many of the discussions so far
have been framed in terms of technology choices like MusicXML vs. MEI, XML vs.
JSON, or IEEE 1599 vs. SMIL. We would like to begin re-framing these discussions
to clearly identify user needs and document contents served by specific
features in these technologies, rather than on whether we should pick technology
A vs. technology B. Eventually we can shift to finding technical solutions that
satisfy the use cases we deem worth addressing, in the context of this group’s
charter.

Building an initial MusicXML specification met with some thoughtful push back.
Peter Deutsch proposed that the specification effort should wait until the
format is redesigned in some key areas to be more easily specifiable. Others
mentioned that it may not be wise to do short-term work that would then need to
be redone based on long-term goals.

People asked what adding support for use of SMuFL glyphs within MusicXML meant,
and why a font standard influences a music representation standard. Our feeling
is that there is an immediate practical need to add more musical symbols to the
MusicXML format. A MusicXML update that includes greater support SMuFL’s
expanded vocabulary of musical symbols will keep interoperability between
applications high. We believe that this can be done with little risk of future
rework based on long-term goals.

Identifying and fixing any remaining gaps or adoption barriers in SMuFL did not
receive much feedback. There appears to be a feeling that the existing
specification is in good shape, and mostly in need of incremental improvements
in symbol coverage.

We therefore propose our short-term work cover three main areas:

 Document the use cases for music notation formats in a way that can help drive
decisions about the structural and conceptual changes needed in the standard.
 Create a very focused, short-term MusicXML 3.1 update that addresses the need
for broadening MusicXML’s symbol vocabulary and fixes some documentation bugs.
This update will avoid any areas that are likely to be redone if structural
changes are made in the future. We already have an initial take on what would be
included in a MusicXML 3.1 update on Github at
https://github.com/w3c/musicxml/labels/V3.1.
 Produce incremental SMuFL updates as needed for enhanced symbol coverage.

We propose that these three items proceed in parallel. Joe will lead the use
case documentation, Michael will lead the MusicXML 3.1 update, and Daniel will
lead the SMuFL updates. We anticipate that the use case work will receive most
of the group’s focus.

Our plan is for the co-chairs to put together an initial use case draft on the
community group Wiki to illustrate what exactly we are thinking of when we talk
about use cases. We plan to get that out within the next week or two.

Please let us know your thoughts on this proposed agenda update on the
public-music-notation-contrib mailing list.

Michael, Joe, and Daniel



----------

This post sent on Music Notation Community Group



'Proposed CG Agenda Changes'

https://www.w3.org/community/music-notation/2015/11/09/proposed-cg-agenda-changes/



Learn more about the Music Notation Community Group: 

https://www.w3.org/community/music-notation

Received on Monday, 9 November 2015 16:47:00 UTC