[MEI-L] ...brackets in orchestral scores: Finale shapes, etc.

[Byrd, Donald A.]

Thanks, Perry. I was thinking of #3 and #5 as being basically square 
brackets, but they're really not that square :-) . I don't think I've 
seen any other shapes "in the wild" either.

--DAB


On Thu, 12 Dec 2013 19:10:27 +0000, "Roland, Perry (pdr4h)" 
<pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu> wrote:

> Hi Don,
>
> Finale provides 6 options in its "Group Attributes" dialog box.  See
> http://www.finalemusic.com/usermanuals/finale2012win/content/finale/GROUPDLG.htm.  I think "bracket" accurately describes options 3, 5, & 6 (from the left), "brace" being used for option 4.  I can't say that I've seen any other symbols "in 
> the
> wild".
>
> (NB -- My mention of Finale doesn't constitute any kind of
> endorsement.  It's just that its documentation is easily accessible.)
>
> MEI currently offers only "none", "brace", "bracket", and "line" as
> possibilities, where "line" is reserved for the thin line connecting
> the score/system staves.  These are sufficient to capture the broad
> categories of symbols, but they (especially "bracket") don't provide
> much in the way of visual detail.  The question is, how/where should
> that detail be located?
>
> My solution is to add "rule" and "bracketsq", representing Finale
> options 2 and 6, respectively.  This expands the level of visual
> detail encapsulated in the @symbol attribute, but still doesn't
> differentiate between options 3 and 5 or capture "typographical"
> features (so-called 'hook' shape, color, line width, etc.).  However,
> it does provide the same level of granularity as MusicXML, enhancing
> loss-less conversion to/from MEI.
>
> Of course, multiple typographical details can't be captured in a
> single attribute value.  And it's bad practice to add more attributes
> to <staffGrp> to comment on the value in @symbol.  So, recording
> those details necessitates a <grpSym> child of <staffGrp> with its
> own attributes.  Those attributes can then be used to describe the
> symbol in greater detail or point to a precise rendition stored
> elsewhere.  This mechanism can be used for any symbol used to group
> staves, if someone does find an example outside the usual ones you
> mention, for instance in a manuscript score.
>
> Not exactly what you asked for, but helpful nonetheless I hope,
>
> --
> 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 [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] on behalf of Byrd,
>  Donald A. [donbyrd at indiana.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2013 1:21 PM
> To: mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de
> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Thin brackets in orchestral scores
>
> Leaving aside nesting and details like thinness, as far as I know, the
> _only_ symbols ever used to connect staves or groups of staves in CWMN
> are (1) curly braces, (2) square brackets, and (3) a thin line -- the
> last being used only to connect all the staves of a system. If there
> are others, I'd love to see an example.
>
> --Don
>
>
> On Thu, 12 Dec 2013 12:51:53 +0000, Andrew Hankinson
> <andrew.hankinson at mail.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
>> Hi Zoltan,
>>
>> There is no limit to the number of nested staff groups. However, if
>> you have more than four nested staff groups, each with its own
>> bracket style, your engraver should be fired! :)
>>
>> @symbol is simply meant to indicate that there is a ?generic?
>> bracket, brace, or line present. This is to give a visual hint, but
>> not a visual definition, to any software parsing the MEI file. Do you
>> have any examples of connecting symbols that are not one of these?
>> (Beyond those previously discussed by Laurent?)
>>
>> -Andrew
>>
>> On Dec 12, 2013, at 4:30 AM, K?míves Zoltán
>> <zolaemil at gmail.com<mailto:zolaemil at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Perry,
>>
>> It makes sense to separately encode the visual characteristics in a
>> child element, such as <grpSym>. Forgive me for my ignorance about
>> the existence of this element!
>>
>> However, I contemplate the problem of having too few values for @symbol.
>>
>> Consider the following statement: "there are N different symbols used
>> in the score that connect groups of staves". How would you encode the
>> staff groups if N>=4?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Zoltan
>>
>>
>> 2013/12/11 Roland, Perry (pdr4h)
>> <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu<mailto:pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>>
>>
>> Hi Zoltan,
>>
>>
>>
>> Some elements (but not <staffGrp>) already allow @altsym, which
>> contains a pointer to a <symbolDef> element that, in turn, contains
>> instructions on how to "draw" the symbol.  This area of the schema
>> has not been exercised much and could therefore use a lot of work.
>> However, I think <symbolDef> could be extended to contain SVG,
>> PostScript, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> Turning to how this would work with <staffGrp>, the @altsym attribute
>> doesn't actually belong on <staffGrp>.  It's the visual
>> characteristics of <grpSym> we're trying to capture, not those of
>> <staffGrp>.  I believe this is what Andrew's comment was intended to
>> mean.  So, instead of <staffGrp>, <grpSym>, which can be a child of
>> <staffGrp>, should bear @altsym, e.g.,
>>
>>
>>
>> <staffGrp xml:id="P2" label="Piano" barthru="true">
>>
>>  <grpSym symbol="brace" altsym="#myBrace"/>
>>
>>  <staffDef ...
>>
>> </staffGrp>
>>
>>
>>
>> Although sometimes it can't be avoided, it's generally bad practice
>> to use attributes to describe other attributes.  The usual way to
>> handle this is to "promote" an attribute to element status and then
>> give it its own attributes.  That's what <grpSym> is doing.
>>
>>
>>
>> The <grpSym> element, however, still has the @symbol attribute with
>> the same values as when it's used on <staffGrp>.  In effect,
>>
>>
>>
>> <staffGrp symbol="brace">
>>
>>
>>
>> is short-hand for
>>
>>
>>
>> <staffGrp><grpSym symbol="brace"/>.
>>
>>
>>
>> In other words, as in several places in MEI, it's possible to use
>> attributes for less-detail-oriented encodings (for example, when you
>> don't care what the brace looks like), but use elements when you do.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> p.
>>
>> __________________________
>> Perry Roland
>> Music Library
>> University of Virginia
>> P. O. Box 400175
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904
>> 434-982-2702<tel:434-982-2702> (w)
>> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
>> ________________________________
>> From: mei-l
>> [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de<mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de>] on behalf 
>> of
>> Zoltán
>> K?míves
>> [zolaemil at gmail.com<mailto:zolaemil at gmail.com>]
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 5:10 PM
>>
>> To: Music Encoding Initiative
>> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Thin brackets in orchestral scores
>>
>> Hi Andrew,
>>
>> The grouping of staves is captured by the staffGrp elements without
>> specifying @symbol. @symbol captures additional information. I talk
>> about this additional content.
>>
>> Zoltan
>> ________________________________
>> From: Andrew Hankinson<mailto:andrew.hankinson at mail.mcgill.ca>
>> Sent: 2013.12.11. 20:45
>> To: Music Encoding Initiative<mailto:mei-l at lists.uni-paderborn.de>
>> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Thin brackets in orchestral scores
>>
>> The intellectual content (?logical domain?) is the groups of staves,
>> not the symbol.
>>
>> On Dec 11, 2013, at 2:06 PM, K?míves Zoltán
>> <zolaemil at gmail.com<mailto:zolaemil at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Would you mind to read my crazy thoughts about this issue? I'm just
>> curious what you people think of my thinking.
>>
>> I think the "intellectual content" in this case isn't so much how the
>> connecting symbols look, but the fact that the symbols are
>> *different*.
>>
>> The current values of @symbol already bear some sort of graphical
>> information, I think. The problem arose now, because it seems that
>> the current set of values don't provide a *complete" classification
>> (that is, in some cases there's no value which describes the symbol's
>> graphical shape appropriately). But of course, it's impossible to
>> provide a complete classification without degrading the markup to SVG.
>>
>> If we accept that the intellectual content is the *difference*
>> between the connecting symbols, then the proper separation of the
>> "intellectual content" from it's graphical representation would be to
>> use a set of values something like this:
>>
>> "symbol1",
>> "symbol2",
>> "symbol3",
>> etc.
>>
>> If one wanted to capture more info about their "look and feel", one
>> could use some pointing mechanism to point to a different element
>> that records the graphical info (possibly even pointing to an
>> external SVG...)
>>
>> I know, it's a crazy abstraction. And it may be way too abstract
>> compared to its practical use, and we could be better off adding a
>> handful of carefully defined values.
>>
>> Zoltan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2013/12/11 Laurent Pugin
>> <laurent at music.mcgill.ca<mailto:laurent at music.mcgill.ca>>
>> It seems to me that adding "bracketsq" as a possible value would be
>> an appropriate addition. I don't think this particular case should
>> necessary open up a discussion on what is just typesetting or not.
>>
>> Laurent
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Roland, Perry (pdr4h)
>> <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu<mailto:pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>>
>> wrote:
>> Yes, caution is advised.
>>
>>
>> --
>> p.
>>
>>
>> __________________________
>> Perry Roland
>> Music Library
>> University of Virginia
>> P. O. Box 400175
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904
>> 434-982-2702<tel:434-982-2702> (w)
>> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
>> ________________________________________
>> From: mei-l
>> [mei-l-bounces+pdr4h=virginia.edu at lists.uni-paderborn.de<mailto:virginia.edu at lists.uni-paderborn.de>] on behalf 
>> of
>> Johannes
>> Kepper
>> [kepper at edirom.de<mailto:kepper at edirom.de>]
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:02 AM
>>
>> To: Music Encoding Initiative
>> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Thin brackets in orchestral scores
>>
>> While there is certainly no harm in adding a well-defined set of
>> additional attribute values, the risk I see is that the distinction
>> between these values gets harder every time, eventually watering down
>> their expressiveness in terms of interchange. I'm not saying we're
>> reaching that point here, I'm just saying that we should be careful?
>>
>>
>>
>> Am 11.12.2013 um 15:58 schrieb Roland, Perry (pdr4h)
>> <pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu<mailto:pdr4h at eservices.virginia.edu>>:
>>
>>> The "land of music typesetting" is always nearby, not unlike a 4th
>>> dimension hovering around us and within us.  :-)   Intellectual
>>> content and presentation are always difficult to separate.  But try
>>> we must.
>>>
>>> There are already issues in the tracker related to @symbol -- nos.
>>> 180 & 182.
>>>
>>> From issue #180 -- "The top and bottom components of a bracket can
>>> be rendered as curved (similar to Unicode #x1D115) or straight
>>> (similar to Unicode #x0005B). The simplest method of dealing with
>>> this distinction is to add "bracketsq" (bracket square) to the
>>> values allowed by @symbol.  "bracket" will continue to be used for
>>> the usual, curved musical bracket. The documentation should be
>>> edited to make the distinction clear."
>>>
>>> I won't attempt to reproduce #182 here, but it covers the selection
>>> of a value for @symbol that captures a line (often fairly wide) used
>>> to group systems instead of a brace or bracket.  There's an image in
>>> #182 that illustrates various grouping symbols.
>>>
>>> Neither the so-called square bracket nor the
>>> wide-line-grouping-symbol can be encoded using @symbol="line" since
>>> that value is already reserved for the line connecting the staves at
>>> their left edge.  I'm partial to the value "rule", but I'm open to
>>> suggestions.
>>>
>>> I see no harm in adding generic values like this to MEI because they
>>> are what I like to call "rendering hints" for the intellectual
>>> content -- in this case the staff group.  But obviously this
>>> mechanism is not optimal for capturing all the visual details of the
>>> symbol, such as line width, color, position, etc.  I am somewhat
>>> trepidatious about going too far down that road, at the end of which
>>> MEI becomes a re-definition of SVG.  :-)
>>>
>>> Yes, there are still things to add to MEI.  And, yes, this is an
>>> opportunity to do so.  Now, if there were only more hours in the day
>>> ...
>>>
>>> --
>>> p.
>>>
>>> __________________________
>>> Perry Roland
>>> Music Library
>>> University of Virginia
>>> P. O. Box 400175
>>> Charlottesville, VA 22904
>>> 434-982-2702<tel:434-982-2702> (w)
>>> pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: mei-l
>>> [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de<mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de>] on behalf 
>>> of
>>> Johannes
>>> Kepper
>>> [kepper at edirom.de<mailto:kepper at edirom.de>]
>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 8:47 AM
>>> To: Music Encoding Initiative
>>> Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Thin brackets in orchestral scores
>>>
>>> The reason why I feel slightly uneasy with this all is that it seems
>>> that we seem to enter the land of a music typesetting program here.
>>> In my ignorance about such details, I would probably encode that as
>>> a line, and ignore the fact that it is connected on both ends. In
>>> manuscripts, there would probably be no difference between this and
>>> either brackets or lines. But maybe you're right, and we should
>>> include the additional value. @Perry, do I remember correctly that
>>> you spotted some values in MusicXML not currently supported by MEI
>>> anyway? Is this an opportunity to revise them?
>>>
>>> jo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Am 11.12.2013 um 14:39 schrieb Laurent Pugin
>>> <laurent at music.mcgill.ca<mailto:laurent at music.mcgill.ca>>:
>>>
>>>> You are right, I think it is missing.
>>>>
>>>> There are actually a few of them in the examples, at least there is
>>>> this one (however with no representation in the encoding)
>>>> http://www.music-encoding.org/sampleCollection/encodings/Berlioz_Symphony_op25.pdf
>>>>
>>>> Laurent
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 1:21 PM, TW
>>>> <zupftom at googlemail.com<mailto:zupftom at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>>>> Laurent's post made me wonder whether we might be missing an
>>>> additional value for staffGrp/@symbol for the thin bracket that is
>>>> used for sub-groups in orchestral scores[1].  Looking at some PDFs in
>>>> the sample collection I didn't see anything like that (I didn't look
>>>> through all of them).
>>>>
>>>> Thomas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [1] see e.g. http://notengrafik.com/pdf/examples/Tchaikovsky.pdf
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>> Dr. Johannes Kepper
>>> BMBF-Projekt "Freischütz Digital"
>>>
>>> Musikwiss. Seminar Detmold / Paderborn
>>> Gartenstraße 20
>>> 32756 Detmold
>>>
>>> Tel. +49 5231 975669<tel:%2B49%205231%20975669>
>>> Mail: kepper at edirom.de<mailto:kepper at edirom.de>
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--
Donald Byrd
Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellow
Adjunct Associate Professor of Informatics
Visiting Scientist, Research Technologies
Indiana University Bloomington