Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
autographical version by Puccini and the Ricordi
printed version. The upper left buttons switch
(even when running an audio/video clip) between
this two scores. The upper right buttons control
the zoom level (50% or 100%) and the current
page to be displayed. Of course, this takes place
only in the Pause state; otherwise the current
page is automatically selected by the audio/video
clip execution.
The bottom left part of the interface is simply
used to open some iconographic objects related
to the piece.
MX Navigator provides a visual interface that
supports different ways to enjoy music. First,
it is possible to select a score version, an audio
track, and a leading instrument and simply fol-
low the instrument part evolution. This is a basic
level of music enjoyment, and yet music can be
listened and watched in a synchronized fashion.
But a second way to enjoy music through MX
Navigator is even more interesting: it consists in
switching from an aural/visual representation to
another. In other words, it is possible to compare
in real time different versions of the score (the
hand-made and the printed one) and different
performances. When the user decides to switch
from a representation to another, MX Navigator
continues just from the point previously reached.
Finally, the application suggests a third way to
enjoy music, by the possibility to alter the original
sequence of music events. For instance, it is pos-
sible to jump - forward or back - from a point to
another point of the score, both in its visual and
aural representations, maintaining the overall
synchronization.
As regards recent attempts to face the prob-
lem of a comprehensive description of music,
we can cite the Standard Music Description
Language (SMDL) (Newcomb, 1991) and the
Music Encoding Initiative (MEI, by Perry Roland)
(Roland, 2002). The former provides a markup
language for any kind of music, of any time, of
any geographical region, of any style; the latter
is primarily concerned with the markup of all
the written forms of musical expression, and
in particular those referable to common music
notation. Though well defined, SMDL probably
failed to attract much attention because of lack
of applications. On the other hand, MEI strives
to be a sort of framework for music description
languages, and MX was deeply influenced in its
main peculiarities by Roland's suggestions.
Presently, there are some de-facto standards
based on XML. MusicXML is a proprietary
standard by Recordare
11
, used in dozens of ex-
isting applications on the market, including the
aforementioned MakeMusic Finale. This standard
has been in existence for over four years, and new
Version 1.1 has been recently released. Even if
MusicXML provides an XML-based description
of music, its approach is different from MX's one
as the former is aimed at a complete description
of the logic and the notational aspects of music,
disregarding other features such as structural
and audio contents. However, it is interesting to
note that most current attempts are based on the
markup concept, which confirms that XML-based
languages can provide an effective representation
of music.
Currently, the most prominent international
initiatives to encode music in all its facets are
referable to IEEE Standard Association Work-
ing Group on Music Application of XML and to
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 Audio Subgroup.
Since 1992, the IEEE Computer Society has
supported the establishment of a Technical Com-
mittee on Computer-Generated Music. The pur-
pose was investigating the vast interdisciplinary
related and future Works
The idea of representing music for computer ap-
plications goes back several decades, as shown
by Plaine-And-Easie Code (Brook, 1970) and
DARMS (Erickson, 1975).
Search WWH ::
Custom Search