MusicXML and SMuFL Updates on GitHub

This month we plan to begin working on MusicXML 3.1, a short-term update to the MusicXML format to add greater coverage of musical symbols, along with targeted bug fixes and feature enhancements. We will also start work on SMuFL 1.2, a short-term update to the SMuFL standard.

We will be using the W3C’s MusicXML and SMuFL repositories on GitHub as the focus point for this work. If you do not already have an account on GitHub, please sign up for a free account at https://github.com. This will let you fully participate in the discussions. Once you sign up, it would be great if you could enter your GitHub ID and a brief summary of your music notation interests at the group’s Wiki page for contributors.

We already have an initial collection of MusicXML 3.1 issues at the MusicXML GitHub repository, and an initial collection of SMuFL 1.2 issues at the SMuFL GitHub repository. For each issue, we plan to have discussion of proposed solutions on the GitHub issue thread. Once the group comes to agreement, the changes will be made and reviewed on GitHub using standard Git processes.

If you have used Git before, this will likely be familiar. If not, the terminology may be new, but the ideas are pretty simple. We will be using Git’s feature branch workflow. Each issue will be worked on in its own named “feature branch” that branches off of the main GitHub branch. That main branch is called gh-pages in the W3C repositories. The feature branches will have names related to the issues.

Once the work for each issue is completed, there will be a request to pull the feature branch into the main gh-pages branch. This pull request serves as an opportunity for anybody following the issue to review the solution and propose changes. Once the group reaches agreement on the review, the changes will be merged from the feature branch into the main branch.

The main gh-pages branch in each repository will always reflect the latest reviewed, working version of the MusicXML schemas and the SMuFL specification and metadata files, respectively. The feature branches will be used for work in progress.

We have set up the Git repositories and the contributors mailing list so that the mailing list will get notifications of new issues, pull requests, and merges. This will only be part of the work going on at GitHub. The best way to follow and participate in the work is to “watch” the MusicXML and/or SMuFL repository once you have a GitHub account.

Git and GitHub may seem a little complicated the first time you use them. However they have become very popular for open source software development projects, including W3C projects like those at the Audio Working Group. Git and GitHub provides structure and transparency for software projects so you can always see what changes were made, who made the changes, when the changes were made, and why they were made.

We look forward to getting to work on the first W3C Music Notation Community Group updates for these important standards. Please let us know if you have questions about the work process. In the meantime, work will also continue on the use cases for a longer-term music notation format standard. See you on GitHub!