[MEI-L] Example: non-integer divisions of the whole note

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

Craig,

> Either the logical duration of the <tuplet> or the <note> needs to be explicit,
> or the tuplet factor needs to be explicit.  For example: "7 in the time of 6" for
> the first layer. The "7" can be extracted (painfully) from the data, but the
> "6" cannot.  Relying on the logical duration of the <measure> will work in
> this particular case, but not in the general case.

You're right.  In simple cases (where the tuplet consists of notes of the same duration, such as an 8th-note triplet in 4/4) the duration of the tuplet can be calculated by adding up the durational values of the notes and taking the highest undotted value smaller than that.  E.g., 8th + 8th + 8th = dotted quarter, duration of the tuplet = quarter (dotted quarter minus the dot.)

But the tuplets in your example can't be handled this way.  In my haste I took too many shortcuts.  I should have written:

  <tuplet num.place="above" num.format="count" bracket.visible="false" num="7" numbase="2" dots="1">

@numbase and @dots express the duration of the tuplet.  Which, now that I write this, makes me wonder what the difference is between @numbase (a duration) and @dur (also a duration).  That's a topic for later. :)

> An unrelated question: you didn't specify oct/dur values for all
> notes.  Is this just due to being parsimonious for illustration purposes,
> or is this an allowed property of (note) attributes in MEI to inherit
> unset attribute values from previous elements (notes)?

This is an allowed property of various attributes in MEI.  In the DTD these are marked as INHERITED (even though this property can't be enforced.) Primarily, this feature is available so that one can be parsimonious when coding by hand.  When converting mechanically from a source which already has explicit data, say, Humdrum :), I wouldn't leave things out just to make the MEI file smaller.

--
p.

__________________________
Perry Roland
Digital Curation Services
University of Virginia Library
P. O. Box 400155
Charlottesville, VA 22904- 4155
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h at virginia.edu
________________________________________
From: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] On Behalf Of Craig Sapp [craigsapp at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:40 PM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Example: non-integer divisions of the whole note

Hi Perry,