MusicXML DTD Hits 1.0; Browser Support Next?

base_chakra writes "Two years since its initial release, the MusicXML music notation document type has finally reached v1.0. MusicXML is an (you guessed it) XML-based musical score format developed by Recordare LLC, and derived from the MuseData and Humdrum projects. Although MusicXML was quickly adopted by virtually every major music notation software products available, a standard non-binary format for rendering music notation on the web is something that's still sorely needed. Despite its unfortunate limitations, will MusicXML eventually become the de facto means of rendering music notation online, or will it fall into obscurity like so many document types?"

Comments

Oh really...

[i_r_sensitive]

...a standard non-binary format for rendering music notation on the web is something that's still sorely needed...

Really? I'm a composer and performer and I have never felt the lack... This is an advantage for me how?

Where is this perceived need to render music notation on the web coming from?

Ultimately, a waste of time. I'm not going to laboriously code up my music into MusicXML format, that's completely insane:

Is it easier than writing out the music, scanning and posting the scan? Not if I allready can read and write music... In fact, I'm incurring the overhead of learning an additional language on top of msucial notation in oder to do this. Most songwriters can learn to operate a scanner and a paint program in an hour, how long to reach that level of expressiveness in MusicXML? I suggest the learning probably never really stops...

Oh, I see, there is a program I can use to graphically handle the creation of the score. Oh, well that's so much better than using a program that could convert the same score to MIDI, which the person you want to exchange info with could then use to either obtain the original score, or play it back, or both simultaneously.

There is no advantage here, IMHO these folks learned standards development in Redmond... If you wanted a useful thing, how about a plugin for webservers that could render a MIDI file to readable score? That makes a bunch more sense.

Was there a need for this format? I suggest not. The existing formats, allthough binary handle the job quite nicely. MIDI for example is stable and mature. Not only that it is supported by the companies which make equipment for songwriters and musicians. What MusicXML implies is that there is something wrong with the standard, which is patently false. It is at best poor programming practice to re-invent the wheel, which is what MusicXML aims to do.

Truly the need is a way to render standard music format on the web. Okay, turning MIDI into standard music format is trivial, and allready being accomplished in many devices, and by many programs. What was needed was a way to display the output of this decoding algorithm to a web page, not to invent an unneeded standard.

Really the only purpose I can see for this standard is to sell software which supports it. The fact that no other industry standard equipment is likely to support it shouldn't deter you, look at M$. If enough people do something the wrong way, it still can become a standard.