MakeMusic Forums

Hi Nick, Finale has a MIDI tool, but you don't need to check it in this case - Dolet is not transfering on the microtonal data yet. Since MIDI pitch bend data is affects everything in a channel, not just a single note, it's not that simple to add this type of support. Finale doesn't have the same ty...

Hi Nick, You can put the microtonal alteration in the <alter> element, in units of a half step. So a quarter tone up would be <alter>0.5</alter>. The <alter> element does not have to be an integer, and the next version of MusicXML will clarify the documentation in this regard. This is assuming you w...

Hi Jane, I think you will need to do some sort of case-like statement - but on the <type> element, not on the the <duration> element, if possible. There are only 11 possible values for the <type> element, so it shouldn't be too bad. As Brian mentions, pre-computing things for a lookup table should m...

Since there are several people with folk music experience on this list: We're doing some notation of modal folk music for the first time, and ran into a question about key signatures. If we have a tune in F mixolydian (tonic is F, scale includes B-flat and E-flat), what key signature would you use f...

Hello Guido, No, there's only one time stream in a MusicXML part; not one time stream per voice. Our examples all come from running our Dolet for Finale converter, so they reflect how Finale's software works. For Finale, it is easiest to go one layer at a time, and use separate MusicXML <voice> elem...

Hi Leon, The hammer-on examples look right. If you want a curved slur line to appear as well as an "H", you would also add a <slur type="start"/> and <slur type="stop"/> to the respective <notations> elements. Most of the guitar music that I have seen would use both the <slur> and <hammer-on>, thoug...

Hi Guido, This is not a trivial question at all, and I see that our sample files at www.musicxml.org/xml/samples.html did not really cover this case. So I have added a new example (from Brahms's song "Wie Melodien zieht es mir", Op. 105, No. 1) for this case. Look at measure 1 in the piano part in t...

Hi Phil, In the normal case for non-nested tuplets, the first time you see a <time-modification> element gives you information about how far forward in musical time the tuplet lasts. So you can use that to determine when the tuplet ends. You can't assume that the <actual-notes> value is the real num...

Hello Leon, Slurs, hammer-on/pull-offs, and slides are all different elements in MusicXML. Slurs indicated by curved lines can go over multiple notes, while there are individual hammer-on and pull-off H and P symbols between each pair of notes. The <slide> element is coming in MusicXML 0.7. For now,...

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the detailed information on bagpipe tuning! This is very helpful data for designing new features for temperament, intonation, and overall tuning for MusicXML.

Thanks, Michael