[smufl-discuss] Re: Discussing Unicode and encoding dilemmas

[David Webber]

From: Emil B.Wojtacki

> As to my understanding, it is not our goal to create a range of Unicode
Standard for musical notation, so that a full score could be encoded in
Unicode...

A full score encoded entirely in Unicode?   An interesting idea, but I'm
pretty sure it would be impossible :-)

But it has got me thinking about the text analogy: a stored sequence of
Unicode characters (in UTF-8, UTF-16LE or whatever) is just a .txt file.
These are fine for making notes, but word processor documents with all their
formatting contain a lot more information.

I don't think anyone is considering even producing a font with al sorts of
special effects which would allow a fully formatted word processor document
to be encoded entirely as a sequence of Unicode characters. Nor do I think
that was ever the intent of Unicode or OpenType.

Music notation relies on geometric relationships among symbols which is way
more complicated than is needed for text, and so I don't think there can
ever be a music notation equivalent of a .txt file, even for a very basic
ditty.   Which leaves us with the 'word processors' of music which will use
the font to produce the images on paper, but also use a lot more information
than just a sequence of code points.

So the objective od SMuFL must surely be to provide a font to assist music
notation programs as smoothly as possible.

> If you are going to say, that for general bass figures, vertical
direction of writing should be involved, you are probably right...

All sorts of things have a vertical relationship long before we get to
figured bass: what about the note-heads in a simple triad?

And because of the variable geometric relationships the drawing code for any
program must surely be *at least* as complex as a sequence of operations the
form

{
move-to-the-desired-point
draw-symbol(s)-from-the-font
}

So if it takes two of these { } operations to draw a figured bass, should we
care?    This structure means you don't have to start repeating symbols in
the font, just to draw them at different vertical positions - which is just
as well: there's be enough notes to go from several leger lines below the
staff to several leger lines above!

What I would like to *avoid* (as much as possible) is complicating this to
make it a sequence of operations:

{
move-to-the-desired-point
select the font in some other size/style
draw-symbol(s)-from-the-font
}

It detracts from the whole concept of a 'font' in the traditional sense.

> I would suggest, that only clef change (or to be more precize: new clef
in staff) should be considered as valid character, which has its initial
form at start of staff and an ordinary (smaller) form within the staff,
although the initial form is sometimes required at instrument change (in
percussion parts, mostly when switching from unpitched to pitched
instrument, but sometimes also from kettle drums to vibraphone). That
would be the most consistent way to encode clefs (in analogy to Arabic
letters), and it would conform recent practice and recommendations of
Unicode Consortium. Now, none of us (I suppose) wants the ordinary,
full-sized treble clef to be considered as "glyph variant".<

I think the 3 clefs are the clearest case for this.   The only other case I
can think of, which still concerns me, is that of grace notes.  These strike
me as an integral part of music, which are semantically different from
notes.  Smaller note-heads (standard black and minim shapes), smaller tail
flags, and a set of smaller accidentals would be fewer than 20 symbols which
would allow construction of all kinds of appoggiatura, acciaccatura, and
beamed groups of grace notes.    The accidentals could also be used to place
above and below trills, mordents and turns.

With those in place, programs could draw an entire piece of music from the
font (and line drawing where appropriate), without having to select a
different style or size.  That starts to feel like a proper 'font'.

The exception of course is cue notes.   But I am now completely convinced,
partly by Daniel, that these constitute drawing a chunk of music at a
smaller size, using (in principle) any characters from the font.  I am
starting to think of them like drawing a footnote in a word processor
document in a smaller sized font than the main body of the text.  (Like a
footnote they're sort of optional and supply extra information.)

Dave

David Webber
Mozart Music Software
http://www.mozart.co.uk/



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