Capabilities of music notation programs

The capabilities of music notation programs can be divided into three basic cate-gories: data entry, data output, and editing. Data entry refers to ways of creating notation. Data output refers to ways of displaying scores or parts of scores, and to ways of exporting information in various forms. Editing refers to ways of manipulating notation that has been previously created by some form of data entry.

Alan Belkin describes the problems involved in music notation software development. Belkin observes that some of the problems are caused by music notation itself. Conventional word processors are very similar to each other in features and deal with a relatively simple flow of data. In contrast, the process-ing and organization of music notation data is much more difficult, and music notation programs must also include a large set of features to accommodate dif-ferent kinds of users (Belkin 1994: 53-54).

To be called a “notation program”, a program requires at least one kind of graphical output and at least one form of data input. Other than this, any combi-nation of the capabilities mentioned above is possible. For example, editing capabilities are not necessarily needed if the program supports an input language that can be created and edited with an external program.

As already mentioned above, music notation programs support many differ-ent ways of inputting data. A particular program may support from one to sev-eral input methods. At least the following input method categories can be listed:

Computer-based music notation

1. Input language 2. Point and click entry 3. Computer keyboard entry 4. Piano-style keyboard entry 5. File import from other programs 6. Data generation from event file formats

7. Automatic composition/arrangement/orchestration

An input language is typically written manually with a conventional text editor or some other external program. Point and click entry refers to data entry by an interactive, typically graphical user interface that is operated by a mouse, touch pad, or other pointing device. Computer keyboard entry refers to an interactive user interface, in which notes are created by the typing of commands on a com-puter keyboard. Many interactive notation programs allow note entry via a piano-style keyboard. In that case, music can be entered, for example, by one's playing the notes in real time (against a metronome click played by the program) or in “step time”, by the choice of pitches from the MIDI keyboard and entry of durations with a computer keyboard.

File import from other programs may be provided, for example, in the form of a dedicated, notation-exchange file format or by interpreting the native file format of another notation program. The generation of notation imported from event files, from MIDI files in particular, is supported by several notation pro-grams. MIDI files are discussed in the next chapter.

A notation program may also provide automatic composition, arrangement, or orchestration capabilities. Also, a macro-facility may be used for automating routine note-entry tasks.

Other, less common input methods include handwritten notation, which uses a graphics tablet (see Forsberg et al. 1998) and optical recognition of printed or handwritten music notation. Also, information retrieval from acoustical signals by automatic transcription could be applied as a method of inputting data (e.g., see Klapuri 2003; McNab et al. 1996). These methods could be implemented as external programs, or as integral parts of notation programs, such as extensions (e.g., “plug-ins”) of notation programs.

Data output methods of notation programs include the following:

Music Notation as Objects

1. Computer display 2. Printing

3. Synthesized audio playback

4. File export to other notation programs 5. Export to event files (e.g. MIDI Files)

Printing and computer display are the most common forms of data output. A synthesized audio playback capability is typically provided for proof-reading purposes. In a more sophisticated form of synthesized playback, algorithmic phrasing methods can be used to make the playback sound less mechanistic than a rhythmically rigorous conversion from graphical or logical notation data. File export may also be provided to other notation programs as well as to MIDI files or other event-file formats.

The available editing methods of notation programs include the following:

1. Interactive point-and-click editing 2. Keyboard shortcuts or macros 3. Interactive command language

4. Editing of input language (i.e. in batch-based, non-interactive programs) A point-and-click-based, interactive, user-interface is perhaps the most com-monly offered editing method in commercial, general-purpose notation pro-grams. To speed up common tasks and to automate routine tasks, interactive programs often offer keyboard shortcuts or user-definable macro commands (as in the case of data entry). In some notation programs, a command language can be used either instead of or in addition to point-and-click-type operations. In the case of an input language, editing is performed in some external program rather than within the notation program itself.

As in the cases of both input and output methods, a particular notation pro-gram does not necessarily provide or need all the editing methods listed above.

For example, programs with no interactive data entry or editing do not need operations for such tasks as selecting, moving, copying, or deleting notation symbols.

Alan Belkin compared the capabilities of commercial notation programs available for the Apple Macintosh. Belkin presented an extensive list of features divided into the following main categories (Belkin 1994: 65-67):

Computer-based music notation

1. Note entry

2. Entry of slurs, articulation, dynamics, etc.

3. Selection in regional editing operations 4. Editing

5. Special, customized notations 6. Lyrics

7. Midi playback 8. Entry layout 9. Page layout 10. Part extraction 11. File operations

12. Interface and overall ease of use

All the programs compared by Belkin were based on a graphical, interactive user interface typical of Macintosh software in general. Belkin noticed a ten-dency towards unification of features between the programs, although their ori-gins differed considerably. Belkin also noted that a previous contradiction between ease of use and amount of flexibility was becoming less obvious as the programs became more mature (Belkin 1994: 54). He cited some “standard”

requirements, such as viewing of user-selected parts of a score, cut and paste editing, and MIDI playback. However, he concluded that “currently, no available notation software meets all of these requirements” (ibid.: 53-55). Belkin restricted his review to the Apple Macintosh platform. Thus, music notation lan-guages designed for text-based user interfaces were not discussed. It can be assumed that there has been considerable progress in the capabilities of notation programs since the time of Belkin’s survey. Some of the programs available in 2004 might well meet Belkin’s requirements. There are, however, also new requirements, such as music publishing via Internet, that would have to be con-sidered, if a similar survey were to be conducted in the year 2004 or later.

Belkin saw a need for the transfer of notation data between programs. He proposed a list of requirements for a “standard notation file format” (SNFF).

Partly from Belkin’s initiative, a group of developers began development of the Notation Interchange File Format (NIFF).