Originally Posted By: Mac
What a Music Sheet looks like and actual playback of music are actually two entirely different things.

I guess I wasn't being clear - I was referring to MusicXML, and how completely BiaB may (or may not) implement it.

MusicXML supports multiple levels of information. At the basic level, you've got something resembling an event list of notes.

This can also include very detailed layout information, such as page layout, element positioning, and so on. The rendering program doesn't have to honor that information, but it should.

Additionally, there's an optional playback information - essentially MIDI information. So visual representation and playback don't have to match, which is exactly the point you were making. This is a capability built into MusicXML.

So what I was trying to get to was that while it would be great if BiaB were to implement as much of the MusicXML standard as possible, even a minimal implementation of MusicXML (without layout and playback information) would be great.


Having said that, I think you'll grant that other people might find value in having their notation programs play back music notation accurately as possible. While this will always be less optimal than a good human performance, the sad reality is that not all of us are good performers. For some of us, a performance by the computer is going to be the only one we'll get for our compositions.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?