On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:59:26 -0700, Alain wrote > Hi Denys, > It is indeed the project I was thinking of. Unfortunately, I still > cannot find the XML specification on the WEB site though (after > cursory browsing). If it is somewhere, I'd really like to take a > look at it.
I might be able to help with a vew references here: - Crawford, T.: Applications Involving Tablatures: TabCode for Lute Repertories. Computing in Musicology 7 (1991) 5759 - Wiering, F. & Crawford, T.: Creating an XML Vocabulary for Encoding Lute Music http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.99.3337&rep=rep1&type=pdf - David Lewis, Tim Crawford and Michael Gale: An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music (ECOLM): Technological challenges and musicological possibilities http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/cim04/CIM04_paper_pdf/Lewis_Crwaford_CIM04_proceedings.pdf - Christophe Rhodes and David Lewis: An editor for lute tablature http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/cim04/CIM04_paper_pdf/Lewis_Crwaford_CIM04_proceedings.pdf (This is a TabCode editor written in Common Lisp - my editor of choice recently) > Interestingly enough, Tim's TabCode format is the > inspiration for the tab format I have used to export Django files to > a Braille compatible printer. Another advantage of XML is that it > can be rewritten using XSL into a large variety of other formats, > including by people who have no access to the original code. Alain I have to aconfess that I'm not too enthusiastic about XML as a storage format for (lute) tablature. If there's interest I might be able to elaborate a bit (need to do some practising now) ... Cheers, RalfD > On 8/15/2011 12:41 PM, Denys Stephens wrote: > > Dear Alain, > > It's good to know that you are giving such careful thought > > to the longevity of our electronic tablature files. Your > > reference in your e-mail: > > > > 'there existed already a project for a tablature specific XML schema, > > based on MusicXML, lead by a famous lute scholar in England' > > > > must surely refer to Tim Crawford's work - see: > > > > http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01tc/web/ > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Denys > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf > > Of Alain > > Sent: 15 August 2011 19:00 > > To: R. Mattes > > Cc: Eugene Kurenko; David Smith; Monica Hall; SCOTT ZEIDEL; Lutelist > > Subject: [LUTE] Re: tablature software programs > > > > Hi all, > > Ralf raises a very important point (see his quote below). Transcribing > > music is a very time intensive, highly skilled job and software can be > > fickle... However, if I may consider myself one of the "creative > > people", I want to point out that preserving the life of the documents > > even beyond the lifetime of our software is indeed a great concern to > > us. This is the reason why I implemented in Django a function to export > > music to the MusicXML format. This is one of the arcane functions in > > Django that 99% of people will happily pass by but it does provide some > > significant protection against the evil situation described by Ralf. It > > does this in two ways: both Django and Fronimo file formats are binary > > formats that are extremely fragile. One byte off, and you may lose > > hundreds of pieces if they are all contained within a single document... > > Quite at the opposite, and similar to Wayne's tab format, XML files are > > text files that can be opened with any normal text editor as well as > > very sophisticated dedicated softwares. Additionally, MusicXML files > > can be read and interpreted by many software packages for a wide variety > > of purposes. So, this is at least one provision to insure that your work > > may not be lost in the near or far future. > > However, it must be noted that the MusicXML format is not extremely > > friendly to music in tablature format... I am not sure it makes any > > provision for alfabeto notation, or rhythm flags on the tablature staff, > > and other Baroque guitar features. Diapasons are also a problem. I > > contacted the person in charge of the MusicXML project some years ago to > > ask for the addition of tablature specific features (diapasons, glyphs, > > alfabeto, etc.) to their XML schema. The response was that essentially > > tablature was an inferior form of musical notation and that there > > existed already a project for a tablature specific XML schema, based on > > MusicXML, lead by a famous lute scholar in England. If anyone has any > > news of that project, please let me know. > > I would not be writing at such lengths about this issue if I had not > > spent the weekend rewriting all the XML related code in Django... I will > > probably come up at some point with my own XML schema for tablature, but > > it would be better to have some community involvement. It would also be > > better if I had unlimited time and resources which is unfortunately not > > the case. > > Anyways, this is all in preparation for a coming release of Django, that > > also includes an important functionality to stamp document ownership - > > another important mundane consideration that took quite a bit of work to > > implement - > > A preview of the future new release is available on YouTube - it's my > > first camtasia effort ... - at http://www.youtube.com/v/oqZEh26WNK4 > > I should try to create a video tutorial specific to Baroque guitar tab, > > since it is a fairly advanced and involved feature of the software - as > > time permits... > > Cheers, and thanks to Monica for her good words on Django :) > > Alain > > > > > > On 8/15/2011 1:50 AM, R. Mattes wrote: > >> Compositions written in enormously expensive notation software, stored > >> on (back then) state-of-the-art disks (Magneto-optics anyone? SCSI > >> SyQuest drives?). All of that by now not more than a impressive > >> digital graveyard (now, I do own a fair collection of rather old > >> hardware, but even that starts to fail). I wish creative people would > >> consider such mundane considerations a bit more: what happens if the > >> author of some software looses interest in the application? Will this > >> software run on newer versions of the operating system > >> (DOS/Win3.1/Win2000, you remember?). Will it run on newer hardware (Mac > >> users, remember PowerPC). > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > > -- R. Mattes - Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de
