[MEI-L] feature request list (long)

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

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Just to be clear --

I think when we talk about "text between staves" we're not always talking about the same thing.

When I use that term, I mean text that occurs between the staves of a single system, a system being a group of staves.

For example, when

/
| staff 1 ->
| staff 2 ->
| staff 3 ->
\

are braced or bracketed together they constitute a system, called an accord by the Europeans.

The text strings that occur over, under, and between these staves are directives because they require at least minimal synchronization with the events on the staff and they usually provide some kind of musical performance direction, such as "Allegro", "l.h.", "mf", "cresc.", etc.  The graphical counterpart to the dynamic strings, hairpin, is also a directive.

Note: In fact, MEI doesn't allow "between" as placement for directives, only "above" and "below", as "between" necessitates a relationship to more than one staff, which is more difficult to manage than a single attachment.

Stage directions and spoken dialog that is not performed "in time" (using the durations written on the staff), also fall into this category because they require some level of synchronization with the musical material.

For example, when the characters Mo and Larry have some spoken dialog, either while the orchestra has a G.P. with a great big fermata over it or while the orchestra continues with some (hopefully) light accompaniment --

          /
          | staff 1 ->
          |
          | Mo: "Let's party!"  Larry: "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!"
          |
Mo        | staff 2 ->
Larry     | staff 3 ->
          \

this is a directive.  The characters are "directed" to speak instead of sing.

Note: Spoken words performed rhythmically would normally be written on a staff of their own or would exist as "lyrics" below a staff.  Think of Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat.

In contrast, the text that occurs between systems is not typically synchronized with the musical events on the staves.

For example,

"In his treatise on folk song, Prof. X said this song is from the Appalachian Region of the United States..."

/
| staff 1 ->
| staff 2 ->
| staff 3 ->
\

"Later, we find this song in the Ozark Mountains in the following form ..."

/
| staff 1 ->
| staff 2 ->
| staff 3 ->
\

I don't consider these text blocks to be "between the staves".  A better description would be "between systems".  These are the kind of things that are best handled using <div> or <anchoredtext>.  If the music notation, encoded in MEI, were embedded in TEI, these are the parts that would be marked up in TEI, not MEI.

Does this make things clearer?

--
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