MNX Draft Specification Now Available

An early draft of the new MNX specification is now available for review and discussion. It can be viewed online here:  https://w3c.github.io/mnx/specification/

This is an important milestone for the group, and we’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to the many email threads and issues that helped move MNX forward so far. We’re excited at the prospect of moving the group’s work to a new level, one which can take a fresh look at some of the problems in music notation encoding.

Some of the significant ground covered in this draft includes:

• A proposed semantic encoding for conventional Western music notation named “CWMNX”. This encoding takes MusicXML as a point of departure, but includes many improvements to syntax, style, content and structure. (See spec and examples.)
• A new type of literal encoding called “GMNX”, which links SVG graphics to audio/performance data via the time dimension. This encoding is particularly suited to drive music practice and performance applications.  It also tries to remove bias towards notational idioms by avoiding the encoding of semantics: in GMNX, notations are just shapes and regions, and all audible content is encoded separately. A common timeline serves to connect notations and their audible counterparts. (See spec and examples.)

The group will be discussing MNX as well as other topics at the forthcoming NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA on Friday January 26, 2018; see this link for details.

We also expect to hold a meeting later in the year at Musikmesse in Frankfurt. Details forthcoming.