[MEI-L] default durations, WAS: @dur on tuplet/tupletspan

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

I forgot to say in my earlier response that the phrase "in the same measure" was there because MEI provides a @dur.default attribute on <scoreDef>, <staffDef>, and <layerDef> elements to handle the case where the first note of the measure isn't specified.  So, the duration of the first note below

<measure>
  <staff n="1">
    <layer n="1">
      <note pname="c" oct="4"/>
      <note/>
      <note/>
      <note/>
    </layer>
  </staff>
</measure>

would default to the value specified in @dur.default given in the layer definition, or if @dur.default wasn't specified there, in @dur.default given in the staff definition, or if not there, in @dur.default stated in the score definition.

It was never stated (and I don't believe it can be absolutely determined) what the result should be if there was no @dur.default attribute at any of these locations.  Some applications might want to raise a fatal error, while others might want to attempt some automagical "recovery" process, such as defaulting to a quarter note duration.  The choice of which way to deal with this depends on the software; that is, whether its internal format requires the specification of duration, whether it forces measures to "add up" to the prevailing meter signature, etc.

--
p.



__________________________
Perry Roland
Music Library
University of Virginia
P. O. Box 400175
Charlottesville, VA 22904
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
________________________________________
From: mei-l-bounces+pdr4h=virginia.edu at lists.uni-paderborn.de [mei-l-bounces+pdr4h=virginia.edu at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of Roland, Perry (pdr4h) [pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 3:21 PM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] @dur on tuplet/tupletspan

Unfortunately, no.  That disappeared with the deprecation of the DTD expression of MEI.  But, the documentation was very meager anyway.

The last DTD for MEI contained the declaration --

<!ENTITY % PROPAGATED '#IMPLIED'><!-- if not supplied, the value should
  be obtained from a previous event in the *same measure* -->

but I don't think this still applies.  It certainly *does not* in mensural notation.  I believe the definition needs to be corrected to say that values should be obtained from a previous event in the same layer on the same staff.

Propagation was only applicable to the @pname (note), @oct (note), and @dur (chord, note, rest, and space).

The concept of propagation was intended to be used for assisting the manual input process; that is, one could type

<note pname="c" oct="4" dur="4"/>
<note/>
<note/>
<note/>

for four quarter notes of the same pitch and save some keystrokes.  This form should never be *exported* from MEI writing software.  The following output is better; that is, more explict --

<note pname="c" oct="4" dur="4"/>
<note pname="c" oct="4" dur="4"/>
<note pname="c" oct="4" dur="4"/>
<note pname="c" oct="4" dur="4"/>

Obviously, however, the short-hand form is important when *importing* MEI into something like, oh, say, MuseScore. :)

It becomes a question of when to regularize the input -- in a separate step prior to importing the file or as part of the import process.  But that would have to be determined by the importing program.

The tech group has already discussed the creation of an MEI "canonizer" (sometimes referred to as "MEI-Iron") and I'm sure it will come up again at the next meeting.  Since this would be an MEI -> MEI transform, I believe an XSLT stylesheet would provide a good solution.

(Just in case you're wondering about the name, the canonizer would also have to "flatten out" the critical apparatus markup for applications that can't handle that kind of thing, hence the name "MEI-Iron".)

Does this help?

--
p.

__________________________
Perry Roland
Music Library
University of Virginia
P. O. Box 400175
Charlottesville, VA 22904
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
________________________________________
From: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of TW [zupftom at googlemail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 2:34 PM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] @dur on tuplet/tupletspan

Good, thanks.  Is there documentation in which context @dur, @pname,
@oct (anything else?) are inherited or propagated?


2011/7/6 Roland, Perry (pdr4h) <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> You understand it correctly.  @dur on tuplet/tupletSpan encodes the total duration of the tuplet.  Its value is *not* inherited by the contained notes/rests/etc.
>
> --
> p.
>
> __________________________
> Perry Roland
> Music Library
> University of Virginia
> P. O. Box 400175
> Charlottesville, VA 22904
> 434-982-2702 (w)
> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
> ________________________________________
> From: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of TW [zupftom at googlemail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 1:39 AM
> To: Music Encoding Initiative
> Subject: [MEI-L] @dur on tuplet/tupletspan
>
> Do I understand this correctly?  @dur of tuplet/tupletspan encodes the
> overal duration of a tuplet so that a "standard" triplet with three
> eighth notes would have dur="4".  I could also imagine that contained
> notes and rests would inherit @dur from the containing tuplet, like
> with chords, but that wouldn't make too much sense for tupletspans
> where there are no contained notes and rests in the DOM sense.
>
> Thomas Weber
>
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