music-research@HPLPM.HPL.HP.COM (10/27/90)
Music-Research Digest Sat, 27 Oct 90 Volume 5 : Issue 88
Today's Topics:
ANSI X3V1.8M update
Optical musical score recognition (2 msgs)
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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 12:04:37 EDT
From: "Steven R. Newcomb" <srn%cmr@edu.fsu.cc.mailer>
Subject: ANSI X3V1.8M update
To: Music-Research <Music-Research%uk.ac.oxford.prg@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay>
Message-ID: <9010241604.AA24468@cmrp.cmr.uucp>
This note is an update on the ANSI X3V1.8M Standard Music Description Language
(SMDL) activity, and it is prompted by Edward L. Stauff's query in MRD 5.86.
> 1. How (if at all) can I get a copy of the spec? (ANSI in NYC doesn't
> seem to know about it.)
The committee no longer distributes the working drafts of the standards
in electronic form for various reasons. The drafts available from the
MRD archives are hopelessly obsolete and they should probably be
discarded (or heavily disclaimered) to minimize confusion. Printed
copies of the most recent draft is always available from the X3V1.8M
Secretariat, The Computer Music Association, Larry Austin, President, P.
O. Box 1634, San Francisco, California 64101-1634 USA. I don't know
what they are charging these days per page, but there will be a
duplicating, handling, and postage charge. If all you are interested in
is technical information, then what you want is two documents:
X3V1.8M/SD-7 (ANSI Project X3.749-D, "HyTime", which is the music and
time-based document time and hyperlink standard, about 80 pp.), and
X3V1.8M/SD-8 (ANSI Project X3.542-D, "Standard Music Description
Language [SMDL]", which is everything about music except for what is in
SD-7, about 60 pp). In addition, I would urge you to consider ordering
X3V1.8M/SD-0, our General Information and Guide to Participation
document (4 pp); X3V1.8M/SD-2, our Document Register (a list of
committee documents, most of which are also available from the
Secretariat); X3V1.8M/SD-3 (list of current committee participants);
X3V1.8M/SD-6 (User Needs and Functional Specification).
Please be informed that all of these documents are works in progress and
they can all be expected to change. The next meeting will be in San
Jose, California, Nov 12-16, 1990. The meeting announcement and draft
agenda can be found in document X3V1.8M/90-66.
It is not particularly astonishing that whoever Mr. Stauff talked to at
ANSI does not know about X3V1.8M, since it functions at a leaf node of
the ANSI organization, which is vast and variegated. Perhaps if he had
mentioned the project numbers, they would have been more helpful. Thank
you for bringing this glitch to my attention; I'll talk to them and
bring them up to speed on this.
> 2. Has it become stable enough that it's worth starting to develop tools
> to support it?
I would not recommend large investments in SMDL tools per se as yet,
since the standard is not complete. It's been fairly stable for a year,
but that does not mean that some major unforeseen problem won't force
some parts to be redesigned between now and its adoption as an ANSI
and/or ISO standard. TO ALL WHO ARE INTERESTED IN BUILDING SMDL TOOLS:
please obtain the documents listed above, read them carefully, and give
us your constructive criticism and suggestions; contributing written
responses to the documents makes you an official participant in the
X3V1.8M standard-building process. Your input is vital to the technical
success of SMDL.
> 3. Is anyone currently developing tools for it (i.e. editor, print
> formatter, conversions, etc.)?
At the Florida State University Center for Music Research we intend to
build tools, but we're not doing it yet, because we are concentrating
our efforts on refining the standard itself.
Although I cannot speak on their behalf, many people and organizations
have expressed their eagerness to apply HyTime and SMDL to various
problems. The array of applications turns out to be staggeringly
large. Even the U. S. Air Force has expressed great interest, believe it
or not.
One application particularly exciting to me is representing scores which
have been read by an automatic music-reading system. Dr. Nicholas
Carter of the University of Surrey has expressed interest in adapting
his evolving system for automatic score reading in such a way as to
output SMDL. (Dr. Carter is working with the Oxford University Press
on this project. Incidentally, I was surprised that his project, which
is the most advanced one I know of, was not mentioned in the recent
rundown of score reading projects here in MRD.)
> 4. Is there any indication that the MIDI software industry is going to
> support it? That is, can I expect programs like SCORE, FINALE,
> COPYIST, etc. to support it someday?
Dave Oppenheim of OpCode Systems is a longtime participant; he has kept
us abreast of MIDI files standards so that we can avoid leaving out any
of the information in that information set. We have not heard from Dr.
T's, and we do not know what their plans are. Dave Kusek, President of
Passport Designs, which markets the Score product, was actually the host
of the first meeting of X3V1.8M (1986, Half Moon Bay, California).
Passport has not chosen to send any representatives to meetings
recently, but they are well aware of our activities. Coda Music
Software, which markets the Finale product, was an enthusiastic
supporter of X3V1.8M, and it hosted a meeting in Minneapolis (1987).
Coda remains interested and aware; I know this because they were
accidentally deleted from the mailing list (when their usual
representative to the committee left the company) and we were asked to
place their CEO's name on our list as his replacement. To summarize, I
would say that the prospects for universal (or near-universal) support
of SMDL are excellent, but for now we must focus on making the standard
technically excellent. The rest will follow naturally. Other music
industry participants: American Interactive Media (Philips-Sony); Human
Touch; Yamaha International; MIDIWORLD; Warner New Media; Interactive
Media Systems; Graphire Corporation.
The HyTime ("everything but pitch and meter") aspect of the project has
attracted considerable interest; here are some of those industrial
participants and observers: National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST); Mead Data Central; Optical Publishing Association;
General Electric; SGML Associates; Hewlett-Packard; Search Technology;
IBM; Bellcore; Xerox; Army Research Institute; Central Intelligence
Agency; CCETT; Bruel & Kjaer; Digital Equipment Corp; Oak Ridge National
Laboratory; APL Integrators; ANSER Analytic Services; Knowledge
Management Associates; Apple Computer; Oster & Associates; Industrial
Technology Institute; Information Navigation; SoftQuad, Inc.; Mitre
Corporation; Tektronix Labs; Bull HN Information Systems; Sun
Microsystems; Taunton Engineering; Texas Instruments; Planning Analysis
Corporation; Context Corporation.
> Any information (including opinions, speculation, etc.) would be appreciated.
> My interest in SMDL is in the possibility of using it as a vehicle for
> exchanging music (scores) across the network.
Because SMDL is an application of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML;
ISO 8879-1986), SMDL files will probably normally be plain ascii text
files, which will easily transmit as e-mail or whatever.
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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 19:05:32 BST
From: Nicholas Paul Carter <phs1nc@uk.ac.surrey.ph>
Subject: Optical musical score recognition
To: Music-Research@prg
Message-ID: <861.9010241805@Zaphod.ph.surrey.ac.uk>
re: Music-Research Digest- Volume 5 : Issue 87
and the messages concerning 'Optical musical score recognition'.
Contrary to Stephen Page's remark that "work in this field ... seems to have
died away", our work into 'automatic recognition of printed music' is continuing
here at the University of Surrey, as is that of several other research groups
around the world.
Anyone interested in this subject may wish to consult the following:-
"Computing in Musicology A Directory of Research", eds. Hewlett, W. and
Selfridge-Field, E., Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities,
Menlo Park, CA., October 1989, 31-34.
"Automatic Recognition of Printed Music in the Context of Electronic
Publishing", Carter, N.P., PhD thesis, University of Surrey, February 1989.
"Acquisition, Representation, and Reconstruction of Printed Music by Computer:
A Review", Carter, N.P., Bacon, R.A. and Messenger, T., Computers and the
Humanities, 22(2), 1988, 117-136.
"Automatic Recognition of Music Notation", Carter, N.P. and Bacon, R.A.,
pre-Proceedings of the International Association for Pattern Recognition
Workshop on Syntactic and Structural Pattern Recognition, Murray Hill, NJ,
1990, 482.
Dr Nicholas Carter
Research Officer, Depts. of Physics and Music, University of Surrey, U.K.
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Date: 22 Oct 90 14:57:03 GMT
From: "Mr. P. H. Smith" <mrsmith%rice-chex%ai-lab%snorkelwacker@edu.ohio-state.cis.tut>
Subject: Optical musical score recognition
To: music-research@prg
Message-ID: <11501@life.ai.mit.edu>
In article <714@skye.cs.ed.ac.uk> dxb@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (David Bainbridge) writes:
> I am seeking information for my final year honours project at the
>department of Computer Science, Edinburgh University. The project
>involves interpreting musical features (notes, sharp signs etc) from
>an image produced by an optical scanner. Has anyone ever tackled a
>similar project, or know of any literature in this field ?
Alan Ruttenberg at the MIT Media Lab just showed me a demonstration of
his optical score reading stuff. His system finds beams, note heads,
barlines, staff lines, accidentals, clefs, etc. He's still working on
it and has yet to implement the midi transcription. Anyway, you
should talk to him about it.
email: alanr@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Paul
mrsmith@ai.mit.edu
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End of Music-Research Digest