[MEI-L] Antw.: symbol/symbolDef

Roland, Perry (pdr4h) pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu
Thu Mar 22 14:54:11 CET 2012


Hi, Benni,

Instructions for "drawing" the symbol go in <symbolDef>.

The simple answer to your question is, Use @scale on <symbol> to specify the size of a particular occurrence of the symbol.

The more complex answer is, Rendering is a coordinated (pun intended) dance between/amongst the values of @page.units and @page.scale (found in att.scoreDef.vis), the values of <symbolDef>'s @ulx, @uly, @lrx, and @lry attributes (from att.coordinated), and <symbol>'s @scale attribute (in att.scalable).

Does that 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 Benjamin W. Bohl [bohl at edirom.de]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 3:05 AM
To: mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
Subject: [MEI-L] Antw.: symbol/symbolDef


Ok, this all seems plausible. But warming up the second issue: How would I go about supplying rendition information for the unknown neume? That should happen in the symbolDef, shouldn't it? How do I give a reference size, indicating how big the symbol is in comparison to other symbols or e.g. the line distance?

B

----- Reply message -----
Von: "Roland, Perry (pdr4h)" <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>
An: "Music Encoding Initiative" <mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de>
Betreff: [MEI-L] symbol/symbolDef
Datum: Mi., Mär. 21, 2012 15:01


> But back to the original question:  It seems that using <symbol> or
> @altsym for classifying unknown symbols (in any context) isn't
> something that I should encourage in the guidelines.  At least that's
> my interim conclusion of the discussion so far.

Correct.  Especially since your example can be simplified, as in the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mei xmlns="http://www.music-encoding.org/ns/mei">
 <meiHead>
   <fileDesc>
     <titleStmt>
       <title/>
     </titleStmt>
     <pubStmt/>
     <sourceDesc>
       <source>
         <physDesc>
           <handList>
             <hand xml:id="handB">
               <name>Beta</name>
             </hand>
             <hand xml:id="handC">
               <name>Gamma</name>
             </hand>
           </handList>
         </physDesc>
         <history>
           <creation>
             <geogName xml:id="mon_Alpha">monastery Alpha</geogName>
           </creation>
         </history>
       </source>
     </sourceDesc>
   </fileDesc>
 </meiHead>
 <music>
   <facsimile>
     <surface>
       <graphic target="facsimile00001.jpg"/>
       <zone data="#symbolAB123_description" xml:id="symbolAB123_example" ulx="180" uly="66"
         lrx="220" lry="81"/>
       <zone data="#symbolCD456_description" xml:id="symbolCD456_example" ulx="3475" uly="1290"
         lrx="3510" lry="1302"/>
     </surface>
   </facsimile>
   <body>
     <mdiv>
       <score>
         <scoreDef>
           <!-- scoreDef-y stuff-->
         </scoreDef>
         <annot xml:id="symbolAB123_description" plist="#symbolAB123_example">This symbol can be found in sources stemming from <ref
             target="#mon_Alpha">monastery Alpha</ref> and is used by hands <ref target="#handB"
             >Beta</ref> and <ref target="#handC">Gamma</ref>. It frequently appears after a
           clivis. It's meaning is unknown. </annot>
         <annot xml:id="symbolCD456_description" plist="#symbolCD456_example">
           <!-- Something interesting about this symbol -->
         </annot>
         <section>
           <staff>
             <layer>
               <syllable>
                 <syl>bla</syl>
                 <uneume name="clivis"/>
                 <uneume facs="#symbolAB123_example"/>
               </syllable>
               <syllable>
                 <syl>bla</syl>
                 <uneume name="clivis"/>
                 <uneume facs="#symbolAB123_example"/>
                 <uneume facs="#symbolCD456_example"/>
               </syllable>
               <!-- ... -->
             </layer>
           </staff>
         </section>
       </score>
     </mdiv>
   </body>
 </music>
</mei>

Instead of using <symbolDef> as an intermediary, uneume/@facs points directly to the facsimile/zone.  annot/@plist also points to the zone so that every uneume doesn't have to be enumerated, however, I think this is somewhat suspect.  It's better to just pick one neume as an exemplar: 

...
<annot xml:id="symbolAB123_description" plist="#symbolAB123">This symbol can be found in sources stemming from <ref
target="#mon_Alpha">monastery Alpha</ref> and is used by hands <ref target="#handB">Beta</ref> and <ref target="#handC">Gamma</ref>. It frequently appears after a clivis. It's meaning is unknown. </annot>
...
<uneume xml:id="symbolAB123" facs="#symbolAB123_example"/>
...


--
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, March 21, 2012 3:54 AM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] symbol/symbolDef

2012/3/20 Roland, Perry (pdr4h) <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>:
>> When talking with the Corpus monodicum people from Würzburg about
>> encoding their data in MEI, the problem occured that occansionally
>> they find neumes that they cannot interpret (yet).  However, those
>> neumes aren't just sloppily written, they clearly manifest a certain
>> kind of symbol as it is found repeatedly (for example within the works
>> of a certain scribe).  @facs doesn't express this, while @altsym could
>> do.
>
> Please forgive me, but I don't understand what you're trying to say.  @facs doesn't express what?  The fact that they can't / don't want to say what a certain symbol is / means?  What does @altsym do in this case that @facs doesn't?
>
> Whatever "it" is, @facs points to a region of an image and says "there it is", while @altsym points to a vector graphic and says "this is how you draw it".  Neither of these attributes has anything to do with interpretation.
>
> Both of these require the encoder to make a decision about what "it" is by choosing an MEI element.  So, for a neume one can say
>
> <neume @facs="d1" altsym="us1"/>
> <!-- This is a neume, it's there at "d1", and instructions for rendering it are at "us1" -->
>
> Are you wanting <symbol> to function as a generic marker for an unknown sign?  That is, if a symbol's meaning is unknown, then are you looking for markup like --
>
> <symbol @facs="d1 d2 d3 d4 d5"/>
>
> saying, in effect, "I don't know what this thing is, but it occurs 5 times"?

No, I was more thinking about something like this:

<mei xmlns="http://www.music-encoding.org/ns/mei">
 <meiHead>
   <fileDesc>
     <titleStmt>
       <title/>
     </titleStmt>
     <pubStmt/>
     <sourceDesc>
       <source>
         <physDesc>
           <handList>
             <hand xml:id="handB">
               <name>Beta</name>
             </hand>
             <hand xml:id="handC">
               <name>Gamma</name>
             </hand>
           </handList>
         </physDesc>
         <history>
           <creation>
             <geogName xml:id="mon_Alpha">monastery Alpha</geogName>
           </creation>
         </history>
       </source>
     </sourceDesc>
   </fileDesc>
 </meiHead>
 <music>
   <facsimile>
     <surface>
       <graphic target="facsimile00001.jpg"/>
       <zone data="#symbolAB123_description"
xml:id="symbolAB123_example" ulx="180" uly="66"
         lrx="220" lry="81"/>
       <zone data="#symbolCD456_description"
xml:id="symbolCD456_example" ulx="3475" uly="1290"
         lrx="3510" lry="1302"/>
     </surface>
   </facsimile>
   <body>
     <mdiv>
       <score>
         <scoreDef>
           <symbolTable>
             <symbolDef xml:id="symbolAB123">
               <symbol facs="#symbolAB123_example"/>
             </symbolDef>
             <symbolDef xml:id="symbolCD456">
               <symbol facs="#symbolCD456_description"/>
             </symbolDef>
           </symbolTable>
         </scoreDef>
         <annot startid="#symbolAB123">
           This symbol can be found in sources stemming from <ref
target="#mon_Alpha">monastery Alpha</ref>
           and is used by hands <ref target="#handB">Beta</ref> and
<ref target="#handC">Gamma</ref>.
           It frequently appears after a clivis. It's meaning is unknown.
         </annot>
         <annot startid="#symbolCD456">
           <!-- Something interesting about this symbol -->
         </annot>
         <section>
           <staff>
             <layer>
               <syllable>
                 <syl>bla</syl>
                 <uneume name="clivis"/>
                 <uneume altsym="#symbolAB123"/>
               </syllable>
               <syllable>
                 <syl>bla</syl>
                 <uneume name="clivis"/>
                 <uneume altsym="#symbolAB123"/>
                 <uneume altsym="#symbolCD456"/>
               </syllable>
               <!-- ... -->
             </layer>
           </staff>
         </section>
       </score>
     </mdiv>
   </body>
 </music>
</mei>

Does it at least make some sense?  It's not valid MEI as I gave the
<symbol> elements inside symbolDef only a @facs rather than a @ref.
(Unfortunately, there aren't any examples for <annot>, <handList>,
<creation> or <facsimile> on Google Code, so I'm using them as I
understand them.  But they're only meant as illustrative background
actors, anyway.)

>
> This doesn't sound right to me because you already said they have *neumes"neumes", right?  So what's wrong with calling them neumes by using the <neume> element?
>

Of course <uneume> would have to be used.  <uneume> has the @name
attribute that can be used to classify the symbol.  If there is a
symbol that doesn't fall in any of the categories that @name offers,
but still can be identified as a certain symbol, I would have used an
@altsym to point to the symbol, like shown above.  Of course one could
use <annot> or something to say "This is the neume of special type
pink-dog-with-green-tail", but I think @altsym is more accessible and
less cluttered.  For example, it's very straightforward to formulate a
search query "Find me all occurrences of pink-dog-with-green-tail".
Or if it should be found out that this is just a strange way of
writing a torculus, then @altsym can be replaced with the proper
@name.

But back to the original question:  It seems that using <symbol> or
@altsym for classifying unknown symbols (in any context) isn't
something that I should encourage in the guidelines.  At least that's
my interim conclusion of the discussion so far.

Thomas

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