Article Read: The next Web standard could be music notation

[groove]

Peter Kirn at Create Digital music talks about a very interesting development for music notation involving some heavy weight partners to create an open source music notation code for the web.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2015/07/n ... qus_thread

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks for posting that. It'll be interesting to follow as it develops.

[stubbsonic]

I think this suggests some great developments ahead for education, distribution and use of notated music.

The SMuFL thing seems big as well.

I'm really curious what effect it will have on notation programs. I mean, obviously, people will still need powerful editors to create files. But perhaps if things open up, there's be some quality elevating competition.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

One question that comes to mind is how much training will people need to use this? As it stands now, unless a user has some grounding in notation, programs are not very useful. You can't just play into them and get truly accurate notation. You have to know what it's supposed to be.

Another question is: what value and appeal it will have to the average consumer? Most people don't give a fiddler's fart about accuracy in the written word, let alone music notation, with grammar and proper use being all but ignored when it comes to online communication. So will online notation cause music notation to devolve in favor of short cuts that just give the basic info but not really represent what is actually happening in a score? As we here know (for the most part) the notes are just one small part of the picture. Articulation, expression, theory, and instrumental practices are critical in accurately notation any work of music. Most people want guitar chords over lyrics and could care less about all that "technical stuff."

I'd still love to see some standard get developed, however, I'm highly skeptical it will catch on for the main stream consumer who resents even paying 99¢ for a tune.

[mikehalloran]

Color me sceptical.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Color me sceptical.

I think we've pretty much covered all available parts of you in that color by now... LOL

[stubbsonic]

I'd be inclined to attenuate my enthusiasm & expectations, too.

If the right people continue to be included in the process, and if people with professional standards continue to provide feedback about things that are not proper-- it could evolve into a robust standard.

Time will tell.

[mikehalloran]

Well, the learned Mr. Good, mentioned in that article, invented MusicXML to encode sheet music so that publishers could share that data. Then he found that publishers had absolutely zero interest in sharing that data with other publishers. It turns out that MusicXML has other uses and this worked out well for him.

He and I have done shows together and he told me this less than a year ago. Nice guy, we've been acquainted off and on (more off) for over 25 years.

I have no doubt that his intentions are exactly as stated but will the rest of the world follow or is he barking up that same tree?

[bayswater]

It looks like all they are doing is defining a set of conventions for displaying a score in a web page that anyone can use to publish a score with some reasonable assurance that anyone with a browser that conforms to web standards will see the same thing. We might expect notation applications to be able to export the HTML code, so XML seems a good place to start. If the standards doesn't accommodate the things people want to show in a score, at least there will be the opportunity of an agreed upon starting point for further development.

All anyone will need to produce a score is a text editor, a 2,000 page HTML manual, and a lot of time.

If Apple, Microsoft and Google are not on board, it will come to nothing anyway.

[mhschmieder]

Mike, that's interesting. Michael Good and I were in a Chicago cover/tribute band briefly in the mid-to-late 80's when we both worked at Digital Equipment near Boston.

I ran into him here on this forum shortly after I joined, and we talked a bit about Music XML, but he hasn't really been active here in a long time and my last personal email bounced, so I wasn't sure if he was still involved here (though I have seen fairly recent industry postings that indicate he is at least still local to the SF Bay Area and a main player in Music XML).

One of the most pleasant people I've ever dealt with on a personal level, professional level, or as a bandmate. He is a passionate trumpet player and it carries over to his work and his dedication to Music XML as a format as well.

[Shooshie]

On an associated note, though not exactly the same subject, Apple just announced an iPad with a stylus. Styluses are not welcome by most iPad users, but there is a fantastic notation program for Microsoft pads (whose name I have momentarily forgotten, but will remember later) which requires a stylus for full functionality. If I understand their comments correctly, the lack of a pointing device is the only thing keeping them from making that app available on the iPad. If that is true, then we might be seeing that app on the new iPads using a stylus.

And if that is the case, we'll be needing to import/export notation through Music XML to iOS devices. There could be interesting times ahead. Granted, that's a lot of "ifs."

Shoosh