[MEI-L] How to distinguish different instruments in the <staffDef> and <staffGrp> elements
Hans Vereyken
hans at neoscores.com
Fri May 22 10:51:53 CEST 2015
But they are independent lines. In theory, you could have two one-handed
people playing a piano and it would make no practical difference. :)
Visually it's separate lines, but musically it's absolutely one line (again
the harp as a better example). If a piano part is intended for 2 players,
each player should have it's own group of staves, or a single stave. And to
avoid confusion a brace shouldn't be used across both piano parts (bracket
would be better, although there are examples of engravers using braces to
group different parts).
Calling these independent lines feels like leaving out half of an
instrument. I' ielaigothl fteltesi etne (It's like leaving out half of the
letters in a sentence), the one independent line is worthless without the
other one. They should be more closely grouped than just a bracket/brace
(in a part if you ask me). Imho this should be clear in the semantics of an
MEI file.
The voice/layer nomenclature in MEI comes from a desire to separate a
melodic line from any idea of "voice leading." (i.e., not wanting to
confuse the practical separation of independent instrument lines from the
music-theoretical notions of harmonic and melodic progression).
Layers still give an 'on top of each other' feeling, so I don't
know whether 'layer' is the way to go. But I understand why.
@instr would help if it would mean that all staves within the group are
played by one instrument, but if I read the specs correctly these are both
ok, but the first example is played by 2 players, the second by 1...
<staffGrp symbol="brace" barthru="true"
instr="Trompete">
<staffDef n="1" clef.line="2"
clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5" label="1"/>
<staffDef n="2" clef.line="2"
clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5" label="2"/>
</staffGrp>
<staffGrp symbol="brace" barthru="true"
instr="Harp">
<staffDef n="1" clef.line="2"
clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5"/>
<staffDef n="2" clef.line="4"
clef.shape="F" key.sig="0" lines="5"/>
</staffGrp>
Notating multiple parts on one staff can be done with the layerDef, looks
good, thanks.
one part on multiple staves is a bit trickier, but can still be done. You
can use the @staff and @layer attributes on events (chords, notes, rests)
to "assign" that event to a particular staff and/or layer.
One part on multiple staves is a very common thing (I'm a professional
pianist) and shouldn't be 'a bit trickier'. Besides I'm working on reading
files, not creating them. I didn't look through all the MEI examples but
this far I didn't found a single example demonstrating this technique.
Ruling out all files who don't follow this technique would be a massive
mistake.
Thanks for discussing this with me!
Hans Vereyken
*Developer*
M hans op neoscores.com
T +32 472 52 75 59
neoScores BVBA <http://www.neoscores.com/> // Pluyseghemstraat 19, BE-2550
Kontich // Twitter: @neoscores
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On 22 May 2015 at 09:54, Andrew Hankinson <andrew.hankinson op mail.mcgill.ca>
wrote:
>
> On May 22, 2015, at 9:16 AM, Hans Vereyken <hans op neoscores.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I see, my subject title is a bit confusing, better would be: How to
> distinguish different players in the <staffDef> and <staffGrp> elements.
>
> "If you have two different staves, these are two different players,
> regardless of the label (a left and a right hand on a piano could be
> thought of as two different "players" since they're playing two separate
> parts)."
> I strongly disagree on that, it is played by a single player and it is a
> single part. This is even more clear if you think about harp parts,
> (very often) one 'voice' (strangely called 'layers' in MEI) traveling
> across 2 staves.
>
>
> But they are independent lines. In theory, you could have two one-handed
> people playing a piano and it would make no practical difference. :) The
> voice/layer nomenclature in MEI comes from a desire to separate a melodic
> line from any idea of "voice leading." (i.e., not wanting to confuse the
> practical separation of independent instrument lines from the
> music-theoretical notions of harmonic and melodic progression).
>
> Another problem is cross staff notes, in your opinion these are the same
> as something that would be called 'cross part notes' (since each staff is a
> part). Think about it, 'cross part notes'... I don't even know any
> contemporary composer who did this.
> I think this information should be added to the MEI format, and I think it
> can be done with an attribute in the staffGrp element indicating that all
> staves in that group are performed by one player/instrument (or group of
> players, eg, 1st Violin).
>
>
> Sorry, I'm still not clear on what you are asking. Have you looked at the
> @instr attribute on staffGrp? Is this what you are looking for? Or is it
> something else?
>
> This way you can keep numbering the staves top to bottom for the whole
> score, but it's clear which staves are played by the same player/instrument
> and should be grouped together when playing around with parts.
> I agree that it needs to be possible to hide a single staff in a part with
> multiple staves, but semantically spoken it's a big difference with hiding
> a part.
>
>
> Would the `layerDef` mechanism help clear this up? You can define a
> specific layer to correspond to a specific voice, in the same way you can
> define a specific staffDef to define a specific staff. Then you can trace a
> specific layer ("voice") throughout the work, having pre-defined it in your
> scoreDef/staffDef block.
>
> For an example, see the Ponchielli_LarrivoDelRe.mei file, where you have
> the percussion instruments on a single staff:
>
> <staffDef n="18" xml:id="P18" label="Batteria" label.abbr="Batt."
> lines="1" clef.shape="perc" key.sig="4f" key.mode="major" spacing="117">
> <layerDef n="1">
> <instrDef n="Snare_Drum" xml:id="P18-X2"/>
> </layerDef>
> <layerDef n="2">
> <instrDef n="Bass_Drum" xml:id="P18-X1"/>
> </layerDef>
> </staffDef>
>
> and then in the body (for example):
>
> <staff n="18">
> <layer n="1">
> <beam>
> <note xml:id="d1e1818" pname="f" oct="4" dur="16" stem.dir="up"
> instr="#P18-X2" pnum="61"/>
> <note xml:id="d1e1837" pname="f" oct="4" dur="16" stem.dir="up"
> instr="#P18-X2" pnum="61"/>
> </beam>
> </layer>
> <layer n="2">
> <rest xml:id="d1e1859" dur="8"/>
> </layer>
> </staff>
>
>
> At the same time it would be great to have another attribute in the
> staffDef element indicating that this staff is performed by multiple
> players, for instance 1st and 2nd Violins are notated as 1st and 2nd voice
> (again, called layers in MEI). This would be very helpfull in reading some
> chorus score's to (in the MEI examples this would clear up different parts
> in Altenburg_Macht_auf_die_Tor).
>
>
> I think the layerDef mechanism will help here too.
>
>
> To be sure we are talking about the same:
> - staff: needed to notate music
> - part: music performed by a single player/instrument
>
> One part can be notated on multiple staves, multiple parts can be notated
> on a single staff. For me part is definitely not the same as staff.
>
>
> Multiple parts on a single staff is pretty easy; one part on multiple
> staves is a bit trickier, but can still be done. You can use the @staff and
> @layer attributes on events (chords, notes, rests) to "assign" that event
> to a particular staff and/or layer.
>
> See: http://www.verovio.org/examples/features/cross-staff.mei for an
> example of how this might work (and
> http://www.verovio.org/features.xhtml?id=cross-staff for a sample
> rendering).
>
>
> Thanks
> Hans
>
> Hans Vereyken
> *Developer*
>
> M hans op neoscores.com
> T +32 472 52 75 59
>
> neoScores BVBA <http://www.neoscores.com/> // Pluyseghemstraat 19,
> BE-2550 Kontich // Twitter: @neoscores
>
> /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
>
> Follow us on: Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/neoscores> // Twitter
> <http://twitter.com/neoscores>
>
> On 22 May 2015 at 00:58, Andrew Hankinson <andrew.hankinson op mail.mcgill.ca
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi Hans,
>>
>> Welcome to MEI!
>>
>> Are you looking for the equivalent of the MIDI instrument that would
>> perform these parts? Or something else?
>>
>> If you have two different staves, these are two different players,
>> regardless of the label (a left and a right hand on a piano could be
>> thought of as two different "players" since they're playing two separate
>> parts). If you have a staff that is "hidden" (for example, if you have an
>> instrument that does not play on certain pages) you still need to define
>> the staff and give it a number. This number should be constant throughout
>> the score. If it does not play in a specific place, it will simply not
>> appear in the measure (as far as I understand it).
>>
>> If you're in a renderer and you want to switch all the "n=2" parts off,
>> then, you would simply hide it whenever you have <staff n="2" ...>. The "2"
>> does not refer to the second staff on any given page; rather, it refers to
>> the second staff defined in a score, regardless of whether it appears or
>> not.
>>
>> -Andrew
>>
>> > On May 21, 2015, at 4:26 PM, Hans Vereyken <hans op neoscores.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > This is my first post to the MEI mailing list.
>> > I'm implementing MEI into our music renderer and am having trouble
>> getting all the info I need about staves.
>> >
>> > I searches the documentation and mail archives for answers but wasn't
>> able to find what I'm looking for.
>> >
>> > So each staff is declared seperatly, with the <staffGrp> certain groups
>> and there symbols are declared. Although a brace usually means that the
>> staves within are the same player (e.g. piano brace), it is not enough to
>> be sure of it.
>> >
>> > In the example files I looked at 'Altenburg_Ein_feste_Burg', the
>> relevant xml:
>> >
>> > <scoreDef meter.count="4" meter.unit="4"
>> meter.sym="common" key.sig="0" key.mode="major">
>> > <staffGrp>
>> > <staffGrp symbol="brace" barthru="true">
>> > <staffDef n="1" clef.line="2"
>> clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5" label="Trompete 1" label.abbr="Tr 1"/>
>> > <staffDef n="2" clef.line="2"
>> clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5" label="Trompete 2" label.abbr="Tr 2"/>
>> > <staffDef n="3" clef.line="2"
>> clef.shape="G" key.sig="0" lines="5" label="Trompete 3" label.abbr="Tr 3"/>
>> > </staffGrp>
>> > <staffGrp symbol="bracket"
>> barthru="true">
>> > <staffDef n="4" clef.shape="G"
>> clef.dis="8" clef.dis.place="below" clef.line="2" label="Pos1 Tro 4"
>> key.sig="0" label.abbr="P 1 Tr 4" lines="5"/>
>> > <staffDef n="5" clef.line="4"
>> clef.shape="F" lines="5" key.sig="0" label="Posaune 2" label.abbr="Pos 2"/>
>> > <staffDef n="6" label="Posaune 3"
>> label.abbr="Pos 3" clef.line="4" clef.shape="F" key.sig="0" lines="5"/>
>> > </staffGrp>
>> > </staffGrp>
>> > </scoreDef>
>> >
>> > and: Chopin_Etude_op.10_no.9:
>> >
>> > <scoreDef meter.count="6" meter.unit="8"
>> key.sig="4f" key.mode="minor">
>> > <staffGrp symbol="brace" barthru="true">
>> > <staffDef n="1" clef.shape="G"
>> lines="5" clef.line="2"/>
>> > <staffDef n="2" clef.line="4"
>> clef.shape="F" lines="5"/>
>> > </staffGrp>
>> > </scoreDef>
>> >
>> > So in both cases I have a group of staves with a brace symbol, how
>> should I know which staves are played by which player.
>> > I can try to sniff the labels and by guessing the semantic meaning of
>> 'Trompete 1,2,3' and conclude these has to be 3 different parts. In the
>> second example this isn't possible, so this won't work (no surprise).
>> > In a dynamic music renderer, where you can switch parts on/off this is
>> key information.
>> >
>> > How should it be done? Am I missing something?
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance!
>> > Hans Vereyken
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > mei-l op lists.uni-paderborn.de
>> > https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/mailman/listinfo/mei-l
>>
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