MNX Specification Working Group meeting: June 2, 2026

Dynamics

Following some feedback from Robert Patterson on our proposal for how to encode dynamics, we agreed that we would change gradual dynamics to express their extent using measure position instead of duration. This is both consistent with how octave lines are encoded.

We also decided that gradual dynamics should have no end value, because this can create an ambiguity in the event that you have multiple abutting gradual dynamics. We will instead only define the starting dynamic, and if you need to define the end dynamic, you will add an immediate dynamic at the gradual dynamic’s end position.

We also decided that we would not need to encode messa di voce in a special way: a crescendo-diminuendo swell can be encoded as a pair of abutting gradual dynamics.

Adrian will tighten up these final details and then add the current proposal to the specification.

Measure repeats

We made good progress on an initial design for measure repeats, sometimes known as ditto or simile marks. We propose that each measure will have an optional measure repeat object, which will be set for the first measure that shows the measure repeat; for a one-measure repeat, each successive bar will have this set; for a two-measure repeat, the first bar will have this set, and the second bar will not, and so on. Each measure repeat will specify the number of measures to be repeated, an optional count (to show that this is the nth repeat in a sequence of measure repeats), and an optional number of slashes in the measure repeat symbol.

Adrian will prepare a formal proposal for this in due course and share it for community feedback.

In our next meeting we will discuss beat repeats, or slashes.

Next meeting

The next specification working group meeting will is scheduled for Tuesday 16 June 2026.