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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?"
I guess it's time to read up on XML and learn what all this hoopla is about! <g>
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
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.
Read the FAQ linked above: "Before MusicXML, the only music interchange format commonly supported was MIDI. MIDI is a wonderful format for performance applications like sequencers, but it is not so wonderful for other applications like music notation. MIDI does not know the difference between an F-sharp and a G-flat; it does not represent stem direction, beams, repeats, slurs, measures, and many other aspects of notation." For musicians, this is a big deal
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
Hate me!
How is their standard not free? (I don't mean their particular application; I don't care one way or the other about that.) I didn't see any particular gotchas in the license; they say they want it to catch on as widely as possible, that they want as many applications to use it as possible and that they don't care if you want to make your application open source. The only possible thing I can think of is a hidden patent, but using XML to represent discrete events (notes) would seem kind of obvious, no? There must be tons of prior art.
Or is there some kind of zealots' vendetta going on, of which I was not previously aware?
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Take a good look at the format. Its a spec defining how to digitize musical scores. When was the last time you went looking online for the score of a particular website? Whe was the last time you went looking online for a score that you could legally download?
This is an important protocol - for all those projects out there digitizing old music scores. Think classical music like Beethoven/Mozart. Up until recently, everyone in this buisness made their own homegrown system. Just to give a taste of where this project comes from:
These are just the standards I know of. This site lits many more I've never heard of. Hopefully MusicXML obsoletes these countless competing standards so those who research in this field can finally exchange data with one another - without porting around and maintating a collection of converters.
However, this really is irrelevant for the vast majority of slashdot readers. Unless your trying to digitize musical transcriptions, this standard is a curiosity at best. I have to wonder why it made the slashdot front page.
The number you have dialed is imaginary, please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
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.