Re: Music Notation on the Web

Hi Roger,

Thank you for your thoughts.

There already is an open XML format for representing music notation in web,
desktop, and mobile applications. This is the MusicXML format, supported by
over 135 applications, from desktop notation editors like Finale and
Sibelius to web-based products like Noteflight, Legato, and Scorio.
MusicXML's license is modeled on the W3C license. The format is used by
proprietary and open-source applications from both industry and academia.
Much more information is available at:

  http://www.recordare.com/musicxml

I started Recordare 10 years ago for the purpose of creating a standard,
web-friendly digital sheet music format. MusicXML has been a great success
in the business-to-business area of music preparation, but not yet a success
as a music distribution format on the web. The latter is due to artistic and
business reasons as much or more so than technical reasons. Composers and
publishers are generally reluctant to publish music in an editable format
online, just like you generally don't see unprotected multitracks published
online for audio. What happens instead is that the editable format gets
licensed to companies that can deliver music in another format to musicians
and fans. Sometimes there are exceptions like Wikifonia, which has a license
for publishing MusicXML lead sheets on the web.

Public domain music does not have these same types of restrictions, so we
are making MusicXML work better for public domain web sites by providing
some additional tooling and improved marketing to sites like CPDL and IMSLP.
Currently, displaying and playing MusicXML in a browser usually requires a
plug-in like Myriad or a Flash application like Noteflight or Legato.
Obviously it would be great to have a MusicXML player native to the browser,
but the audio API is a prerequisite for doing this in a web standard way.
However, with 135 applications available - including applications
for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, and the browser - there's a lot of
potential already for sharing music notation on the web, if not always in
the browser. Not every application has to be, or should be, in a browser to
deliver the best user experience.

Joe Berkovitz from Noteflight is an active participant in the Audio XG, so
there are two of us in the music notation / MusicXML world involved here as
invited experts. Notation use cases are indeed helping to shape the audio
API. To move forward with as much speed and quality as possible, I think it
does make sense for the Audio WG to focus on the audio API first - informed
by notation needs, of course - and then move to higher level application
interfaces. I think the proposed charter is setting scope appropriately.

You also ask "Is an audio streaming activity really appropriate in the
absence of standards for transmitting the content from which those streams
are derived?" For popular music, this is generally not the case. The audio
representation is primary for the songwriters and performers. Notation for
lead sheets, PVG, and tab are derived afterwards. Notation may be primary
for a classical music performer, but not for a listener.

We are likely to start working on version 3.0 of the MusicXML format very
soon. Changes to the MusicXML format are driven by the MusicXML community
and discussed on the MusicXML email discussion list. Signup for that list is
available at:

  http://www.recordare.com/musicxml/mailing-list

At some point it is possible that MusicXML may transfer to an organization
like W3C or IEC. However, the small size of the music notation industry
makes it difficult for standardization to happen in these larger
organizations, though fast-track processes might be a possibility in the
future.

Best regards,

Michael Good
CEO
Recordare LLC
www.recordare.com
(and volunteer tenor in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus)