[MEI-L] How to encode choices...?

Benjamin Wolff Bohl bohl at edirom.de
Fri Jun 14 08:52:39 CEST 2013


Hi Sigfrid,
hi Axel,
great that someone else thinks of how to encode combinatorial games in 
music ;-)

I can very much understand your idea of using <choice> it would make 
things so straightforward, wouldn't it? And also Zoltan's idea to use 
<rdg> seems very plausible when reading the respective element 
descriptions. Nevertheless as has been mentioned, these elements were 
for editorial additions and the like.

I tried to encode Francesco Saverio's Guida Armonica and still am on 
overhauling it and (maybe) bringing it to MEI. And in this context I 
stumbled over the attributes @prev and @next their description 
respectively say: "points to the next/previous event(s) in a user 
defined collection"

Although not hitting the spot absolutely, I could imagine an encoding 
using mdiv elements to group the stacks (A, B, &c.) and sections for the 
individul cards. With @prev and @next on the sections pointing to 
possible next sections; something like this one:

       <mdiv xml:id="A">
         <parts>
           <part xml:id="piano">
             <section xml:id="A2" next="B">
               <measure><!-- card content --></measure>
             </section>
             <section xml:id="A3">
               <measure><!-- card content --></measure>
             </section>
             <!-- &c. -->
           </part>
         </parts>
       </mdiv>
       <mdiv xml:id="B">
         <parts>
           <part xml:id="piano">
             <section xml:id="B2" next="C" prev="A">
               <measure><!-- card content --></measure>
             </section>
             <!-- &c. -->
           </part>
         </parts>
       </mdiv>

Hope that helps,
Benjamin

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Am 14.06.2013 08:06, schrieb Sigfrid Lundberg:
>
>
> Thanks Raffaele for this analysis. I didn't even know that there was 
> such an element as ossia.
>
> Currently we encode the cards as sections, since there are six piles 
> of cards that are one and a half measures long appearing at the starts 
> and endings of repeats. Each section has an unique xml:id constructed 
> by pile and card number.
>
> The encoding is done such that I write whole tunes each with cards 
> with the same number.
>
> Then we have written xquery for retrieving any tune given the their 
> coordinates (pile,card)
>
> Sigfrid
>
> Skickat från Samsung Tablet
>
> Raffaele Viglianti <raffaeleviglianti at gmail.com> skrev:
> Hi Axel,
>
> This is a fascinating problem and I also think that <choice> would 
> also be more appropriate than <app> in this case. Though <choice>, de 
> fact more than by definition, is used for alternatives justified by 
> the elements that <choice> can contain, such as <sic>, <corr>, <orig>, 
> etc. So it's more editorial than what it seems.
>
> I would argue that <ossia> would be closer to what you're looking for, 
> because these are alternatives suggested by "the text on the source". 
> One caveat of ossia is that the alternative has to be provided within 
> the same source, but you seem to consider the cards as being one 
> source, so maybe this will work.
>
> If I understand correctly, the cards can be consider as part of one 
> "score", though a score that only gets determined by chance. 
> Nonetheless, I would group the cards in a score element and assume 
> that they only form one "movement" or section.
>
> <mdiv>
>   <score>
>     <section>
>
>      </section>
>   </score>
> </midv>
>
> In <section>, I would create a "measure" for each of the 11 piles. 
> Each represents the hypothetical measure that one of the alternative 
> contents will fill.
>
> <mdiv>
>   <score>
>     <choice>
>       <measure n="1"/>
>       <measure n="2"/>
>       <measure n="3"/>
>       <!-- etc. -->
>     </choice>
>   </score>
> </midv>
>
> At this point, the content of each card is expressed as a staff within 
> <ossia>. You can use @decls to point to the description of the card as 
> physical object.
> If you have more than one instrument, each one will need their ossia 
> because of the measure-wise structure of MEI.
>
> <mdiv>
>   <score>
>     <choice>
>       <measure n="1">
>         <ossia>
>           <staff n="1" decls="#card1">
>              <!-- card content -->
>           </staff>
>           <staff n="1" decls="#card2"/>
>           <!-- etc. -->
>         </ossia>
>         <ossia>
>           <staff n="2" decls="#card1"/>
>           <staff n="2" decls="#card2"/>
>           <!-- etc. -->
>         </ossia>
>       </measure>
>       <measure n="2">
>         <!-- same for second pile! -->
>       </measure>
>       <!-- etc. -->
>     </choice>
>   </score>
> </midv>
>
> And that's it. One thing that it's not encoding is the selection 
> criteria (the dice). But arguably, that's a performance issue and can 
> be expressed with a <dir> somewhere. Or you can customize the verbose 
> definition of <ossia> in ODD to specify that a computer program can 
> pick any of the alternatives at random.
>
> Another way of looking at this problem is to keep the act of "putting 
> the pieces together" completely out of the MEI. You can take a 
> "documentary" approach by encoding the cards as separate objects, and 
> their relationship get expressed elsewhere, either in a script's logic 
> or with some subject-predicate-object triple structure.
>
> Best wishes,
> Raffaele
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 4:59 PM, Axel Teich Geertinger <atge at kb.dk 
> <mailto:atge at kb.dk>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Johannes and Zoltan
>
>     Thank you for your input. I am not completely convinced by either
>     approaches - using multiple <orig> in <choice>, or a number of
>     <rdg> elements in <app>. I think I need be a little more specific
>     about the nature of the work in question. The piles of cards are
>     labeled A to V. The composition must begin with one of the cards
>     A2 to A12 (bar 1), followed by one of the cards B2 to B12 (bar 2)
>     etc. This means that the cards cannot be shuffled - each card can
>     only appear in one particular place, so each pile of cards really
>     does represent different texts at the "same point in the text",
>     and that is why I thought <choice> would be the right element to
>     use, because that's what it is: a choice one has to make at that
>     particular point in order to perform or render the piece.
>
>     Using <app> and <rdg> does not sound right to me, because they are
>     for use with the critical apparatus (which is an editorial device,
>     as I see it). The guidelines clearly say that "An app element
>     always encapsulates the differences between varying sources". But
>     here, the entire set of cards is _one_ source, and the
>     alternatives are not variant readings in the sense used in a
>     critical apparatus. They are not about disagreement between
>     sources, but intentionally different options and exactly equally
>     valid.
>
>     As you say, the editorial elements within <choice> come in pairs,
>     so <orig> signals to me that there will follow a <reg> element or
>     something of that kind providing a (slightly) different (i.e.
>     corrected, regularized etc.) encoding of the _same_ content. The
>     guidelines say that <orig> "Contains material which is marked as
>     following the original, rather than being normalized or
>     corrected." It is not obvious to me how multiple <orig> siblings
>     within <choice> should be understood. I was just hoping to be able
>     to put <section> or <measure> or the like into <choice>; that
>     would make sense to me in this case. I see that this may imply
>     turning <choice> into another one of these scary elements that -
>     like <rdg> - may contain just about anything and really are open
>     to encoding all sorts of rubbish...
>
>     All the best,
>     Axel
>
>
>
>     -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
>     Fra: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de
>     <mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de>
>     [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de
>     <mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de>] På vegne af
>     Johannes Kepper
>     Sendt: 13. juni 2013 21:13
>     Til: Music Encoding Initiative
>     Emne: Re: [MEI-L] How to encode choices...?
>
>     Dear Axel,
>
>     this is an interesting problem. I'm sure there are better answers
>     around, but here's a first take from me.
>     <choice> is about the "same point in a text", as you pointed out.
>      Normally, you encode the alternatives in its child elements,
>     which are normally paired (<abbr> and <expan>, <sic> and <corr>
>     etc.). It is absolutely possible to have a set of <orig> elements.
>     However, when interpreting the "same point in a text" in a verbose
>     way, <choice> seems to be the wrong choice. Your example has a set
>     of different texts, which may be shuffled or selected randomly,
>     but most importantly, they are different texts. Also, my
>     understanding of the elements from the edittrans module is that
>     they should be used to enrich encodings with additional background
>     knowledge of the editor. Here, everything seems to be in the
>     sources (though this is certainly arguable.).
>
>     I would probably encode every card as a separate section (or even
>     mdiv), and then use an <app> / <rdg> structure referring to these
>     to encode a virtual "walkthrough". Given you know that eleven
>     cards should be played, it would look like so:
>
>     <app label="firstCard">
>             <rdg target="#card1/>
>             <rdg target="#card2/>
>             .
>             <rdg target="#card22/>
>     </app>
>     <app label="secondCard">
>             <rdg target="#card1/>
>             <rdg target="#card2/>
>             .
>             <rdg target="#card22/>
>     </app>
>     .
>     <app label="eleventhCard">
>             <rdg target="#card1/>
>             <rdg target="#card2/>
>             .
>             <rdg target="#card22/>
>     </app>
>
>     I'm not fully convinced of this approach, as it relies on the
>     interpretation of the cards as different texts, but it should work
>     nicely with an application doing the actual selections in each <app>.
>
>     Other interpretations?
>
>     Best,
>     johannes
>
>
>
>     Am 13.06.2013 um 19:18 schrieb Axel Teich Geertinger <atge at kb.dk
>     <mailto:atge at kb.dk>>:
>
>     > Dear list,
>     >
>     > We are preparing a little experimental digital edition of a
>     piece named "Kaleidakustikon" (c.1820) by Friedrich Kuhlau. It is
>     an aleatoric piece of music of the same kind as, for instance,
>     Kirnberger's "Der allezeit fertige Menuetten- und
>     Polonaisencomponist" and the "Musikalisches Würfelspiel"
>     attributed to Mozart.
>     > It consists of 21 piles of cards, each card containing one bar
>     of music. The player selects one of the 11 cards in each pile by
>     throwing dice. Put together, these cards form a little waltz. The
>     project is of course to make it an online game, at the same time
>     giving us some experience with MEI workflows.
>     >
>     > The question is: How should we encode the multiple alternatives
>     for each bar? The guidelines explain that the <choice> element
>     "groups a number of alternative encodings for the same point in a
>     text". Sounds perfect for this purpose. However, it only allows
>     editorial markup elements like <abbr>, <sic>, <corr>, <reg>,
>     <orig>, <unclear>, <subst>, and <expan> as child elements (BTW,
>     the guidelines p. 163 also mention <add> and <del>, but not
>     <abbr>, <expan>, and <subst> - a mistake?).
>     >
>     > How do we encode choices among a number of alternatives provided
>     by the composer as part of the compositional concept?
>     >
>     > Best,
>     > Axel
>     >
>     > <image001.jpg>
>     > Det Kongelige Bibliotek
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>     centerleder |
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>     >
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