[MEI-L] comment on MEI @clef.trans values

Byrd, Donald A. donbyrd at indiana.edu
Sat Aug 15 22:49:54 CEST 2009


On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:22:12 -0700, Eleanor Selfridge-Field 
<esfield at stanford.edu> wrote:
> Hi, Don,
>
> 15ma [quindicesima] makes a lot more sense than 15va [compounded from ottava
> + ottava], but 15mb makes no sense at all.

Yes, it's a silly abbreviation; I'm not particularly attached to it :-) .


> I'm not persuaded that just
> because an instance of something exists, it needs to be accommodated in
> Round 1 of MEI.

I agree completely -- in fact, handling everything that's ever been 
used is out of the question, at least for several years; there are WAY 
too many obscure features people have used -- and 15ma bassa is well 
below the level of importance that MEI Round 1 needs to handle. The 
Byrd & Isaacson table lists 15ma and 15ma bassa as "very desirable", 
not required -- and for 15ma bassa, just "desirable" is surely more 
accurate. However, unlike almost everything in music notation, octave 
signs form a simple, closed set of exactly four signs, of which two are 
obviously essential and we're talking about doing one more, so it seems 
to me it'd be worth taking care of the fourth now just to get it out of 
the way. (I have to admit now I think I once saw a "22ma" sign 
somewhere! But I don't think that's even worth considering.)


> It might be good just to keep a list of exceptions that might be desirable
> for eventual inclusion (cf. the Dagstuhl core, which consigns them to Level
> 2).
>
> For exceptions of a more arbitrary nature (and Augenmusik in general), an
> annotation should suffice. This is especially true for works of recent
> decades, because in the current copyright climate, their encoding is
> unlikely.

I'll comment separately on all of this.

--Don


>
> Eleanor
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de
> [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] On Behalf Of Byrd, Donald A.
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:35 PM
> To: mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] comment on MEI @clef.trans values
>
> I vote for changing 15va => 15ma; also adding 15mb, which has actually
> been used in published music (if anyone cares, I know of three
> occurrences, one in a well-known piece: Cowell's The Tides of
> Manaunaun).
>
> --Don
>
>
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:44:12 -0700, Craig Sapp <craigsapp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello MEIers
>>
>> In DTD 1.9b, I notice that there are
>> three choices for @clef.trans which is a
>> transposition value for a clef sign:
>>
>> 8va = transpose up one octave higher than written
>> 8vb = transpose down one octave lower than written
>> 15va = transpose up two octaves.
>>
>> 8va is the abbreviation for "ottava" in Italian.
>> 8ba is the modern abbreviation for "ottava bassa"
>>
>> 15va does not exists as an abbreviation in Italian,
>> but is rather "15ma" which stands for quindicesima,
>> or a perfect 15th (two octaves).
>>
>> It may be better to change "15va" to "15ma".  And if so,
>> then also add "15mb" represending "quindicesima bassa"
>> for playing two octaves lower for completeness.
>>
>> Alternatively, the transposition could be given numerically
>> as in +1 for 8va, -1 for 8ba, +2 for 15ma and -2 for 15mb. Or,
>> semitones could be used: +12 for 8va, -12 for 8vb, +24 for
>> 15ma, and -24 for 15mb.
>>
>> -=+Craig
>>
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>
>
>

--
Donald Byrd
Senior Scientist
Adjunct Associate Professor of Informatics & Music
Indiana University, Bloomington




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