Re: MusicML

At 9:19p -0700 08/16/98, Murray Macdonald wrote:
>Michael Hamm wrote:
>>
>> Okay, so we've got MathML, and we've got the HTML3 MATH tag. How about
>> a MusicML?
>
>As a person with many years of professional experience in both computers
>and music, I have some concerns about this concept.

The first question to ask is: What existing problem would it solve?
I can't think of any.

>> There's currently no way (aside from graphics) to put standard musical
>> notation in HTML, but this can be remedied. Here's a proposal. (I'm
>> styling it after HTML3's MATH tag.)
>
>Is it really wise to establish a standard that will encourage people to
>depict compositions in such a limited format?  Classical music notation
>lacks many of the things required to properly depict a composition.  If
>you want to display scored musical notation, why not supply a standard
>.mid file and translate it to score using any one of the many utilities
>that do this?  I bet there is already an applet that does this.
>
>If we establish a "Notation" standard in HTML then there will certainly
>be a requirement for a MIDI translator. I suggest the opposite. Musical
>score lacks the precision and details already supported in MIDI. I'd
>rather translate MIDI to Notation than Notation to MIDI.  The results
>would be better, and people could actually hear the intended
>composition.

What would be cool is to *stream* MIDI over the Internet. Since QuickTime
already supports a MIDI track, we're well on the way to some cool stuff.


-Walter

Received on Monday, 17 August 1998 12:18:34 UTC