The <directive> element

Parent element: <attributes>

Directives are like directions, but can be grouped together with attributes for convenience. This is typically used for tempo markings at the beginning of a piece of music. This element was deprecated in Version 2.0 in favor of the <direction> element's directive attribute.

Content

string

Attributes

Name Type Required? Description
color color No Indicates the color of an element.
default-x tenths No Changes the computation of the default horizontal position. The origin is changed relative to the start of the entire current measure, at either the left barline or the start of the system. Positive x is right and negative x is left.

This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the <offset> element. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both features should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy.
default-y tenths No Changes the computation of the default vertical position. The origin is changed relative to the top line of the staff. Positive y is up and negative y is down.

This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the placement attribute. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both attributes should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy.
font-family font-family No A comma-separated list of font names.
font-size font-size No One of the CSS sizes or a numeric point size.
font-style font-style No Normal or italic style.
font-weight font-weight No Normal or bold weight.
relative-x tenths No Changes the horizontal position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-x attribute. Positive x is right and negative x is left. It should be interpreted in the context of the <offset> element or directive attribute if those are present.
relative-y tenths No Changes the vertical position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-y attribute. Positive y is up and negative y is down. It should be interpreted in the context of the placement attribute if that is present.
xml:lang xml:lang No Specifies the language used in the element content. It is Italian ("it") if not specified.