Re: Music Notation Community Group meeting: Tuesday 17 March, 4pm UTC

Hello Stephen,

My name is Karim Ratib, I'm the current (and recently appointed) spec
editor for MusicXML, a co-chair for the Music Notation Group and a
long-time community member. I can give you my perspective on the important
topic that you bring up, namely community involvement.

In the March 17 public meeting, I presented to the circa 20 member audience
my vision and strategy for MusicXML maintenance during my tenure. You can
find it here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JpAgtFRD_JpWuMpSOwbXkYjSHXVF0FoJPiTaegyz44A/edit?usp=sharing

My position is that community involvement is essential to ensure that
MusicXML evolves with the needs of the community. The MusicXML GitHub
repository at  https://github.com/w3c-cg/musicxml  is the primary place
where the community comes together to discuss issues, whether for feature
requests, documentation questions or general discussions. If you look at
the recent activity there, you'll find that community members are actually
participating in issues that they didn't start themselves, which to me is a
sign of healthy involvement.

In addition, we have identified longer-term projects that we can
undertake, like revamping the documentation site, creating validation
tests, revising some cross-cutting concerns in the schema. Over the past
months, a couple of community members have stepped up to help out with such
projects, which is another great sign of community involvement.

In an effort to create more connection among community members, I've
suggested initiating "office hours" which would involve an online
interactive channel (like Slack) where members can drop in during weekly
time slots. I've received no feedback so far, but this is something that is
still on the table. Cf. https://github.com/w3c-cg/musicxml/discussions/639

To answer your question about "how to get involved", I would recommend to
familiarize yourself with the current activity on the GitHub repository and
get involved in the issues that pique your interest. You can of course
start your own issues and discussion topics if you have any.

Recognizing that there's always more to be done to further encourage
community involvement, I welcome your thoughts on the topic - preferably as
a discussion topic in the GitHub repository!

All the best,
Karim




On Wed, May 13, 2026 at 11:43 AM Noble, Stephen <steve.noble@louisville.edu>
wrote:

> Thanks for your reply, Daniel. I appreciate the fact that a few folks are
> putting in a lot of effort to move the spec along. But it seems like the
> true "working" group is quite small and there is limited visibility or
> understanding to the long-term goals of the larger community group. I guess
> I need to add myself as a watcher on the repository so I will get issue
> updates and other progress notes, but even then I don't know if I would
> understand the larger context, other than somebody suggested that support
> for "x" would happen, and then would the code got updated we would see
> something about item.
>
> I tried to figure out when the last full group meeting occurred before the
> 2026 meeting that I missed, and it looks like it was in 2022 Music
> Notation Community Group - Online meeting only | W3C
> <https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/aa0a4ec7-dfef-4f63-be81-251f3870b30a/>.
> I think that was a meeting I got to attend...but one meeting every four
> years seems awfully infrequent. I would love to see more opportunities for
> engagement as a community...but maybe I am the only one that feels that way.
>
> Nonetheless...thanks for all the work you and the other members of the
> group leadership are putting into this effort. I don't want to sound like I
> do not appreciate that work, because I think it is very important and am
> glad to see it occurring.
>
> Best regards,
>
> --Steve Noble
> steve.noble@louisville.edu
> 502-969-3088 (home office land-line phone)
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Daniel Spreadbury <D.Spreadbury@steinberg.de>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2026 11:42 AM
> *To:* Music Notation Community Group <public-music-notation@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Music Notation Community Group meeting: Tuesday 17 March,
> 4pm UTC
>
>
> *CAUTION:* This email originated from outside of our organization. Do not
> click links, open attachments, or respond unless you recognize the sender's
> email address and know the contents are safe.
> Hi Stephen,
>
> You’re quite right that notes from our meeting on 17 March haven’t been
> published. Apologies, that’s an oversight on my part, as the sort of
> unofficial secretary for the co-chairs’ activities. I will try to remedy
> that.
>
> In general you’re quite right that individual community group members are
> not invited to our regular meetings. We now have two meeting series, both
> bi-weekly: a meeting for the three co-chairs (Adrian, Karim, and myself) in
> which we discuss overall CG business and report in brief on updates to the
> three core specifications; and a meeting for the MNX spec working group
> (Adrian, Myke, and myself) in which we work in detail on MNX spec issues.
>
> In all cases, the majority of the work of the CG is happening in public on
> our GitHub issues and discussions in the respective repositories, and
> that’s the best place to keep an eye on to understand what is being worked
> on, together with the minutes of the bi-weekly meetings, which are sent to
> this list.
>
> We are talking about opening up the MNX spec working group to CG members,
> perhaps not on every meeting, but every fourth meeting or so, but we
> haven’t decided upon this formally as yet. I’ll bring this back to the top
> of the agenda for our next meeting in a couple of weeks.
>
> Daniel
>
> *From: *Noble, Stephen <steve.noble@louisville.edu>
> *Date: *Wednesday, 13 May 2026 at 16:36
> *To: *Daniel Spreadbury <D.Spreadbury@steinberg.de>; Music Notation
> Community Group <public-music-notation@w3.org>
> *Subject: *Re: Music Notation Community Group meeting: Tuesday 17 March,
> 4pm UTC
>
> You don't often get email from steve.noble@louisville.edu. Learn why this
> is important <https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
> Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this meeting as I was traveling. I
> don't remember ever seeing any notes from this meeting and did not see them
> on the community group website, but perhaps I missed them.
>
> Since I almost never see notices about meetings that group members can
> attend, it feels like I am disconnected from the goals of the group. Are
> there plans for more such meetings? Other than perhaps maybe adding issues
> in GitHub or maybe posting email topics to this list, I am wondering about
> ways to contribute to the progress of the group. Only having group meetings
> every few years seems really odd to me. But maybe hardly anyone attended
> the March 17 meeting?...though I don't know. Sorry I was unable to attend.
>
> --Steve Noble
> steve.noble@louisville.edu
> 502-969-3088 (home office land-line phone)
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Daniel Spreadbury <D.Spreadbury@steinberg.de>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 10, 2026 3:55 PM
> *To:* Music Notation Community Group <public-music-notation@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Music Notation Community Group meeting: Tuesday 17 March, 4pm
> UTC
>
>
> *CAUTION:* This email originated from outside of our organization. Do not
> click links, open attachments, or respond unless you recognize the sender's
> email address and know the contents are safe.
> Dear CG members,
>
> The co-chairs invite you to attend a virtual meeting on Zoom next Tuesday,
> 17 March at 4pm UTC, in which we will provide updates on each of the
> group’s active specifications – SMuFL, MusicXML, and MNX. This will also be
> a great opportunity for CG members to meet our new co-chair and MusicXML
> specification editor, Karim Ratib.
>
> Please find the details below:
>
> Topic: Music Notation Community Group meeting
> Time: Mar 17, 2026 16:00 London
> Join Zoom Meeting
> https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88129014409?pwd=p7nYqA80RuDqVP3PDcbkYNTiJJO3Mg.1
>
> Meeting ID: 881 2901 4409
> Passcode: 325945
>
> Join instructions
>
> https://us06web.zoom.us/meetings/88129014409/invitations?signature=CoSI3xIdyb_Qi3XpED0ZM0ZFJa3WN3Dfb62BVDdG-Ds
>
> We look forward to seeing you there next week.
>
> On behalf of the co-chairs,
>
> Daniel
>
> Phone: +49 40 21035 0
>
> *Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH*
> Beim Strohhause 31, 20097 Hamburg, Germany
>
> Managing Directors: Clyde Sendke, Takatsuna Maeda, Nils-Peter Keller
> Registration Court: Hamburg HR B 86 534 | VAT ID: DE118677139
>
> Visit the Steinberg website <http://www.steinberg.net/> or connect with
> us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/Steinberg>, Instagram
> <http://www.instagram.com/steinbergmedia>, TikTok
> <https://www.tiktok.com/@steinbergmedia>, SoundCloud
> <http://www.soundcloud.com/steinbergmedia> and LinkedIn
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/steinberg-media-technologies-gmbh/>.
> Watch our Cubase <https://www.youtube.com/cubase>, Dorico
> <https://www.youtube.com/dorico>, Mobile Apps
> <https://www.youtube.com/mobile_apps_steinberg>, Nuendo
> <https://www.youtube.com/nuendo>, Steinberg
> <https://www.youtube.com/user/SteinbergSoftware>, Audio Interfaces
> <https://www.youtube.com/audiointerfaces>, VST Instruments & Plug-Ins
> <https://www.youtube.com/VSTinstrumentsplugins> and WaveLab
> <https://www.youtube.com/WaveLab> videos on YouTube.
>
> Steinberg’s General Terms and Conditions
> <https://o.steinberg.net/en/extras/general_terms_and_conditions.html>
>  apply.
>