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Re: producing "archival" scores


From: Jason Merrill
Subject: Re: producing "archival" scores
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 23:29:28 -0400

There is not now, nor ever will be, some universal music language.
MusicXML is an option, but not one everybody will choose.  One could ask
the exact same question by replacing 'lilypond' with 'MusicXML'.  The
issue with archival (it seems to me) is a format whose source will
"always" be readable and whose output will "always" be viewable.  Seems
to me Lilypond and MusicXML are the only ones that provide both of
these.  They also seem to me to be the only two options that are
non-proprietary so others will not have purchase anything to access your
work.  Whether you prefer MusicXML or Lilypond is a matter of taste,
methinks.  Obviously the people on this list are going to have a marked
bias towards Lilypond, but that is indeed another question.

I could argue that Finale is also "a music interchange format that is
widely supported."  MusicXML is just one more way of encoding music.
Any format that uses plain text as source and a non-proprietary compiler
I think is a perfectly decent archival option.

There's an important distinction to be drawn here.  MusicXML vs
Lilypond is not just a matter of taste because the two clearly have
different goals.  MusicXML is objectively a terrible format for
inputting music from a computer keyboard.  However, according to
Wikipedia, "MusicXML is supported to varying degrees by over 75
different notation programs, including the two leading scorewriting
programs, Finale and Sibelius."  Because it is supported by many
different programs of all types (graphical and ascii, free and
non-free, etc.), and because it is open so that any project can add
support for it, MusicXML is currently a viable "interchange format."

Lilypond is not readable by such a large array of programs, and so is
currently a less viable interchange format.  Now, it is possible (but
seemingly not likely) that in the future all these and other programs
will adopt support for lilypond, which would make it a viable
interchange format.  Barring that, though, and in it's current state,
lilypond is something of a black hole.  You can turn anything else
into lilypond via MusicXML, but once you've worked on it in lilypond,
there's no obvious way to get it back into a different editable
format.  Luckily, this problem could be entirely addressed on
Lilypond's end if it could be compiled to a suitable interchange
format.  Figuring out if there was already a way to do this was the
intent of my original question.  In my opinion, being able to get a
file into an interchange format as I've described here is one property
(certainly not the only property) that helps make it archival.

As for Finale being a viable interchange format, I disagree.  I don't
know how many programs can currently read Finale natively, but I
suspect it is not that many.  Another strike against it is that it is
not open, and thus not so easy for future projects to add support for
it.  Finale, however, does not need to be a viable interchange format
itself because it has the ability to export and import MusicXML, which
is a viable interchange format.

I should say that I make no claims about MusicXML being in some way
ideal for interchange.  It may or may not have inherent features that
make it better than lilypond or other formats for interchange.  The
only things it has going for it that I know or care about are that it
is open, and that it has done a good enough job marketing itself that
it is already widely supported.  The latter is, I suspect, no small
task, which is why one might satisfy themselves with using MusicXML
for interchange rather than trying to make their favorite format into
an interchange format by convincing everyone else in the world to
support it.

> So far, the best option was suggested by Tom: a tool called PDFtoMusic
> Pro that converts PDF scores into MusicXML.  The pros are that it is
> available right now, and that it presumably works.  Downsides are that
> it is proprietary and not free, and takes what seems to me a rather
> indirect route towards solving my particular problem.
>

1) I have strong reservations about the claims made by this product.  I
would be very interested in hearing what people's results have been.  I
cannot imagine that they can do what they say with the accuracy they imply.

2) The fact that it's proprietary to me is more than a downside, but
actually kills the option as one for long-term archival.  I guess it
depends on your goals.  It sounds like you're more interested in
exchange rather than archival.

Good points.  I'm actually interested in both exchange and archiving,
but the difference hinges on what you hope to get out of your archive,
I suppose.  Traditional archives (libraries and such) aren't expected
to be easily editable by future generations, but if we can preserve
editing capabilities, that would make a more useful archive in my
view.

Regards,

Jason




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