[MEI-L] figured bass and accidentials

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

Hi, Benjamin,

<harm> is intended for all kinds of textual harmonic markup, not just figured bass.  So, it is intended to contain nothing more than a formatted string.  Two sub-elements are used for formatting -- <rend> and <stack>.  <stack> is particularly useful for figured bass because it indicates, surprise!, text stacked as in a column, such as

6 
5

The delim and align attributes on <stack> control how the text is stacked up.

<rend> may be used within <stack> to achieve other effects, such as superscript.

Flats, sharps, and other signs, such as diminished and half-diminished symbols, may be included by inserting the appropriate Unicode character or entity.  So, your example would be encoded --

<harm staff="1" dur="4" tstamp="1" place="below">
  <stack align="rightdigit" delim=" ">7<rend rend="sup">&nat;</rend> 3<rend rend="sup">&sharp;</rend>
  </stack>
</harm>

As for slashed figures, it appears that "slashed" needs to be added to the values permitted in the rend attribute of <rend>.  When this is added, you can use <rend rend="slashed"> to indicate a slashed figure.  Or perhaps we should just stick with "strike", but with the understanding that it has a special meaning and rendition when it has a <harm> ancestor.  Thoughts, Johannes?  Eleanor?

In the interest of brevity, I won't discuss figured bass realization right now, but I can later if you're interested.

Thanks for "exercising" MEI in this somewhat neglected area.  If you have suggestions for improving MEI's handling of figured bass, please let me know.

Best wishes,

--
perry
 
__________________________
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 bohl at edirom.de [bohl at edirom.de]
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:49 PM
To: mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
Subject: [MEI-L] figured bass and accidentials


Hi MEI-list,

I'm about to code some  passages of figured-bass and I don't know how to add accidentials to the figures. Coding a note 'a' in the third octave with a natural seven and a sharp third I only came as far as this:

<staff n="1">
    <layer>
        <harm staff="1" dur="4" tstamp="1" place="above">
            <!-- accidential: natural -->
            <num>7</num>
            <!--  accidential: sharp -->
            <num>3</num>
        </harm>
        <note pname="a" oct="4" dur="4"/>
    </layer>
</staff>

Can anyone help me replacing the comments with real data? And how could I possibly code a slashed figure?

In MusicXML figured bass is much more elaborated concerning additions to the figures, such as accidentals or slashes, see below:

<measure number="1">
    <figured-bass>
        <figure>
            <prefix>natural</prefix>
            <figure-number>7</figure-number>
        </figure>
        <figure>
            <prefix>sharp</prefix>
            <figure-number>3</figure-number>
        </figure>
        <duration>8</duration>
    </figured-bass>
    <note>
        <pitch>
            <step>A</step>
            <octave>3</octave>
        </pitch>
        <duration>8</duration>
    </note>
</measure>

Although I don't want to say MusicXML was the better schema for figured bass - it is all but perfect - I wonder how its explicit portions could be transferred to MEI.

In great expectation of discussion.
Sincerely,
Benjamin

***********************************************************
Projekt "Digitale Musikedition"
Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar Detmold/Paderborn
Gartenstraße 20
D - 32756 Detmold

Tel. +49 (0) 5231 / 975-665
Fax: +49 (0) 5231 / 975-668
***********************************************************