Beyond MIDI: The Handbook of Musical Codes

MuseData §3: Examples

Walter B. Hewlett

3.1 Mozart Clarinet Quintet, K.581

    The five MuseData files which comprise the encoding of the first 12 bars of the second trio from Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, K.581 (Example 1a), are displayed in Examples 1b-f.

    Note that each of these files belongs to two groups: sound and score. Note also that the clarinet part is encoded at notated pitch, not sounding pitch. The fact that the part is a transposing part is indicated in the X: field of the first $-type record. A value of 11 means that all pitches in this part must be transposed down a minor third when compiling sound files.

    Mozart Clarinet Quintet (trio section), up to double bar. First part (clarinet) of five; the string parts are shown below. All encoded attributes (here pitch name, chromatic inflection, octave number, duration in time, duration name, stem direction, beam and slur information, and articulation) are indicated explicitly for each event.

    Example 1a:

    MuseData files which represent example 1a:

3.2 Mozart Piano Sonata

    The second example (Example 2b), an encoding of the Mozart piano example (2a), illustrates several features of the MuseData representation. The music is encoded into one file with two staves. The backup command (back) is used to encode simultaneous musical tracks. Print suggestion records are used to shift the orientation of the slurs in the lower staff; the program default placed them under rather than over the notes. The chord arpeggiation is encoded, but our printing software cannot yet typeset this symbol.

    Example 2a:

    MuseData file which represents example 2a:

3.3 Telemann Aria

    The Telemann aria illustrates the handling of text underlay, the encoding of small size regular notes and cue notes, and the use of print suggestions. It also shows the degree to which musical typesetting can be done directly from the representation without further human intervention. The typeset example is not perfect, nor does it place simultaneous notes in exactly the same order as in the original, but it is a very good approximation of the original and would need only a small amount of manual editing to correct these minor defects. This example is encoded in two files: one (3b, interrupted for reasons of layout by the music, 3a) represents the vocal part and the other (3c) a reduction of the instrumental score on two staves.

    Example 3a:

    MuseData files which represent example 3a: