An Introduction to MusicXML

David Parsons - May 31st 2013

An Introduction to MusicXML

Dr David Parsons


MusicXML files are the standard format for sharing interactive sheet music

More than 160 applications include MusicXML support◦ Including Cubase, Sibelius and Myriad

What is MusicXML?


“I feel that MIDI is an outdated standard for music education. I believe that MusicXML is the proper standard for music education …import/export with notation accuracy is a world of hurt with MIDI and much improved with MusicXML”

Christopher J. Russell, Ph.D. - Technology in Music Education Blog, May 2012

MusicXML and education


XML◦ eXtensible Markup Langauge

XML is◦ Semi-structured◦ Self describing◦ Fundamental to the web, web services, RSS feeds

etc.◦ Provides a common way for any two applications

to communicate with one another XML is a meta language – you can create

your own languages from it

MusicXML is a dialect of XML


Elements and attributes

What do you notice about this data structure?

What does XML look like?

<element1> <element2 attribute1=“value”> some data </element2> <element3> some more data </element3></element1>


Why can’t I just use MIDI?◦ Musical scores need to know about keys◦ MIDI doesn’t know if your note is an A# or a B♭◦ MIDI doesn’t know about much beyond the notes

themselves

You can create a MIDI file from MusicXML, or a notation file

Why do I need MusicXML?


What do you need to specify if you want to represent a note like this middle C semibreve?

Specifying a note


MusicXML includes ‘note’ elements Nested elements inside this specify the

pitch and the length of the note

MusicXML for the note

<note> <pitch> <step>C</step> <octave>4</octave> </pitch> <duration>4</duration> <type>whole</type> </note>


The key and the clef

the key the clef

The key is defined using the circle of fifths◦ Zero+major is C Major

The clef has a sign, and the stave line it appears on

<key> <fifths>0</fifths> <mode>major</mode></key>

<clef> <sign>G</sign> <line>2</line> </clef>


4/4 time? Easy enough

The time signature

<time> <beats>4</beats> <beat-type>4</beat-type></time>


These are typically used for metadata◦ Not the actual music data, but things that tell us

about it Here’s an example:

◦ Each musical part is given a unique id so we can refer to it from other elements

◦ Each measure needs a number we are in the first measure of the first part

Attributes

<part id="P1"> <measure number="1">


Including stuff we haven’t talked about

Just for one note, right?

Sure, but you don’t do this stuff by hand

Software reads and/or writes MusicXML

Here’s the whole thing

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE score-partwise PUBLIC "-//Recordare//DTD MusicXML 3.0 Partwise//EN" "http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/partwise.dtd"> <score-partwise version="3.0"> <part-list> <score-part id="P1"> <part-name>Music</part-name> </score-part> </part-list> <part id="P1"> <measure number="1"> <attributes> <divisions>1</divisions> <key> <fifths>0</fifths> </key> <time> <beats>4</beats> <beat-type>4</beat-type> </time> <clef> <sign>G</sign> <line>2</line> </clef> </attributes> <note> <pitch> <step>C</step> <octave>4</octave> </pitch> <duration>4</duration> <type>whole</type> </note> </measure> </part></score-partwise>


Here’s our file in Myriad Melody Player We can see it, and hear it

Reading MusicXML


Understand how different applications communicate musical data

Use MusicXML to transfer data between them

Write software that can generate MusicXML◦ so you music can be scored◦ e.g. write a mobile composition app that streams

MusicXML to the cloud) Write software that can read MusicXML

◦ so you can present it how you like◦ e.g. create sound driven animations in HTML 5

So what can I do with it?


You could utilise any or all of the following… Technologies for processing XML

◦ XPath / XSLT / XQuery◦ SAX (serial access) parsers◦ DOM (document object model) parsers

XML data Streams◦ File streaming◦ Web services

Tools that understand MusicXML◦ e.g. Java Music Specification Language

What’s the next step?

An Introduction to MusicXML

Technology

Transcript of An Introduction to MusicXML