Mus 253/3C 2008 Craig Stuart Sapp; rev. esf 2010 1

MusicXML and MEI

Music 253 Stanford UniversityWinter 2010

Craig Stuart Sapp 2005Rev. E. S.-F. Winter 2010

Mus 253/3C 2008 Craig Stuart Sapp; rev. esf 2010 2

Purpose

image from: http://recordare.com/xml.html

• Primary function of MusicXML is data interchange between programs:

• Designed for encoding common-practice western music notation.

Finale

Sibelius

Guido

MuseScore

Lilypond

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MusicXML Development

• June 2001 : Alpha version of MusicXML 0.3 available

• March 2002: First commercial release of MusicXML 0.6 (Import plugin comes with Finale 2003)

• Jan 2004: MusicXML 1.0 released

• July 2007 MusicXML 2.0 (Java-based), rev. 2008

•Current DTD at http://www.recordare.com/xsd/index.html

http://recordare.com/xml.html

Developer = Michael Good

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Dolet plugin for Finale

• Primary implementation as a plugin called Dolet for Finale:http://store.recordare.com/doletfin2.html

http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/plugin-devkit.asp• Write your own plugins for Finale:

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XML Tree Structure

<tag> <subtag> <subsubtag> ... </subsubtag> </subtag> <subtag2> ... </subtag2></tag>

Shorthands: <tag/> == <tag></tag>

<tag key=“value”/>

<tag> <key>value</key></tag>

analogous to:

tag

subtag subtag2

subsubtag

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pdr4h/xmlresources/XMLstepbystep.pdfAn Introduction to XML file structure:

attributes:

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MusicXML Structure<score-partwise> <identification>...</identification> <part-list>...</part-list> <part id=“p1”> <measure number=“1”> <attributes>...</attributes> <note>...</note> <note>...</note> <note>...</note> <note>...</note> </measure> <measure number=“2”> <note>...</note> <note>...</note> </measure> </part> <part id=“P2”>...</part></score-partwise>

• partwise score most common

• each part listed serially

• part consists of measures

• measures contain (1) <note>s (items with duration) and

•(2) <attribute>s (items without duration such as clef, time signature, key signature, etc.)

•(3) <direction>s (dynamics)

•(4) <sound/> (tempo)

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Note Element

<note> <pitch> <step>C</step> <octave>5</octave> </pitch> <duration>1</duration> <voice>1</voice> <type>16th</type> <stem>down</stem> <notations> <articulations> <staccato placement="above"/> </articulations> </notations> </note> see: http://recordare.com/xml/musicxml-index.html

logical duration

graphical duration

http://esf.ccarh.org/253/Handouts/Moz457_xmldesc.pdf

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Partwise vs Scorewise views Partwise

Each voice in a separate track (e.g. MuseData, Finale)

Scorewise All voices in one file (e.g.

Humdrum, SCORE)

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Causality• MusicXML is not a causal encoding format

<backup> and <forward> commands are usedto encode single parts with multiple staves or multiple voices.

voice 2

Examples of causal music formats: MIDI (partwise encoding) Humdrum (scorewise encoding)

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Other XML-Based Music Formats

http://www.music-notation.info/en/musixml/MusiXML.html

• MusiXML

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/digital/resndev/mei/

• Music Encoding Initiative:

see: http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlMusic.html

Proprietary systems (Hal Leonard, et al.)

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Music Encoding Initiative (MEI)

Partial analogue to text-encoding initiative (TEI) Unicode complaint Non-commercial Attractive to librarians and musicologists Developer = Perry Roland, Joachim Veit, Craig

Sapp, Johannes Kepper, and many others See http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/innovation/mei/

An Introduction to XML file structure:

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pdr4h/xmlresources/XMLstepbystep.pdf

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XML-based codes and virtual editions

Corpus Mensurabilis Musicarum (http://www.cmme.org)

(Theodor Dumitrescu, CNRS, Tours, FR)

Goal: One encoding, multiple styles of notation

From The Virtual Score. Used by permission.

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Predecessor Data-Interchange Formats

• MIDI

• NIFF http://www.music-notation.info/en/compmus/notationformats.html#NIFF

http://www.musitek.com/midiedition.html• SmartScore

• Available in Sibelius and Lime Notation Programs

• Originally the only way out of Finale’s proprietary format.

not designed as a notation interchange format.

see: http://www.visiv.co.uk/niff.htm

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Politics of XML

Schemes supervised by WWW consortium

WWW consortium funded by industrial members ($10,000/yr and up)

Efforts to seat an adjunct body for music rejected by WWW consortium (2005)