Co-chair meeting minutes: February 2, 2021

MusicXML 4.0

Michael has closed seven issues since the last meeting:

• #43: placement of dynamics
• #146: documentation of the level element
• #205: documentation of how to handle redundant guitar tab staves in documents that encode notation+tab
• #285: fixing imported schema location attributes in the schema for XML and XLink, so they now validate in Python’s XML parser more easily
• #288: adding a type attribute to the level element to encode the start and stop of a level
• #292: better documentation for the staff-type element
• #311: better documentation for the rehearsal element

Issue #335 has been brought into scope, to allow the encoding of a piano pedal line without an initial vertical stroke.

Michael next plans to work on the listen element, covered by issue #294, and polychord and altered bass note formatting for chord symbols, covered by issue #307. There are now 22 remaining open issues in scope, and 36 closed, so progress towards the milestone is currently at more than 60%.

SMuFL 1.4

All of the remaining issues in the SMuFL 1.4 milestone have now been closed, and an updated editor’s draft with all of the changes has now been published, which you can read here. A summary of the changes in this version, with links to the relevant issues, can be found here.

To accompany this draft, Daniel has also released a new version of Bravura, version 1.392, that implements all of the SMuFL 1.4 changes. Feedback from the community on the new glyphs is particularly welcome.

Depending on what feedback is received in the coming days, further changes may be needed, but currently the plan is for SMuFL 1.4 to proceed to becoming a final report by the end of February 2021.

MNX

Adrian has been making improvements to the documentation system, tracked in issue #223, adding a data model for data type options so that the values of attributes can be defined in a strict fashion.

There is also now a new page in the documentation called Comparing MNX and MusicXML, which is intended as the eventual successor to the existing MNX by Example page. Once Adrian has implemented the missing features – the ability to focus in on just the relevant parts of the mark-up in each example, and the ability to order them reliably – then the previous page can be retired.

The next job is to model the complex types so that it can be possible to use this documentation system for MusicXML as well as MNX, and to make it possible to create additional pages in the documentation to house more discursive material such as tutorials, examples, and so on. Beyond that, Adrian will continue to migrate the existing MNX specification material into the new system.

Next meeting

The next co-chairs meeting will be on Tuesday 16 February 2021.