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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?"
There already is a fairly widespread musical notation format in use on the web. It's called ABC. There's even a Sourceforge site for it.
That said, ABC isn't perfect - it's evolved in many ambiguous and incompatible ways over the years, making it difficult to code a common parser. MusicXML might be better suited for that job, or for professional use.
For casual use, though, ABC is tough to beat.
There is a clear need for a better way to share music notation. At wikipedia, there has never been a consensus so TeX generated by Lilypond or something similar is used. That works poorly, because it is hard to integrate with CGI, and without integration only users who have Lilypond themselves can contribute.
Same set of problems at composerplanet.com, though they are still getting their site together and haven't chosen a strategy. Looks like .PNG and .JPG images will be the de facto standard. Ick.
Lilypond is free, and runs on Linux, but is unlikely to become much of an interchange standard because the UI isn't accessible to the vast majority of musicians, who are as a rule not experts on writing something according to a context-free grammar. Besides, Lilypond is best for typesetting-quality layout, at which it does indeed excel.
Whatever the solution becomes, the ability to share scores with ease will touch off another wave of handwringing among sheet music publishers. I just yesterday received a book with all of Scott Joplin's piano music in it -- all written before 1915 -- and guess what? It says right on the front page that it is against the law to copy them! So far, most musicians don't know any better, but if MusicXML comes to pass, that may all change.
I've been working on LilyPond for the past eight years, and we're now finally reaching a stage where the output can be taken seriously. I estimate that it took over 4 man-years of work to develop the current source code (60k lines of C++, 10k Scheme, and 10k python). Of all that source, less than 10 % is concerned with the file format, and they form the easy bits. When it comes to notation, file formats are not the problem.
If you want to read more in-depth information on notation vs. music representation , I recommend to read the essay at lilypond.org.
Regarding buzzword compliancy: have a look at our XML format, but like I said: the format is besides the point. Han-Wen (LilyPond author)
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
It will do for music what CSS & XHTML with metatags do for printed text...Right now sheet music is still the standard for music notation...it's not couducive to archiving or sharing [sans simply scanning the paper copy] Imagine having the musical equivelant of Google where you can find a song by just a few notes...MusicXML allows you to develop that!
Once those tools are set we can take on plays, speech, and eventually source code too! This is one of the first really original uses of XML...what it was created to do!
Meanwhile, if I sit down with Finale, I can have it done in an hour.
But then you're stuck with Finale's output, which is mind-numbingly uniform and, thus, vastly more difficult to read in performance than Lilypond's more beautiful output. Yes, true. I'm not talking about in pop stuff or other simple music, but in music that is complex enough so that it must be read in performance. John Cage, one of your examples, created music that is inherently difficult to memorize; it is unpredictable enough that it cannot be reduced to pattern or algorithm. (Generally, Crumb and Schwantner, two more of your examples, are not difficult to memorize.) Since there may well be more reading going on in complex music than in simple music, in complex music, like Cage's music, the quality of the score become very important.
Music engraved by experts is better than Finale output because it is easier to read. Well-engraved music provides all sort of visual cues to help a performer play the correct notes in the correct rhythm, keep his or her place on the page, etc. A sort of visual grammar has evolved over centuries of engraving, and even nexperienced musicians respond to it with hardly a thought.
The Lilypond programmers seem to have done remarkable work in parsing this grammar and deriving rules, then using the grammar to improve score output. Finale and Lilypond are night and day in terms of ease in reading.
I am a musician who performs a lot music of the last fifty years--Crumb, Cage, and Schwanter, among many others. I have used Finale regularly since 1989. I tried Lilypond a year ago, and I won't be going back.