MusicXML Division and Duration

Question

I have an MXL file from some test suite in which the first measure says Division is 8 (i.e. 8 units per quarter note).

Measure 4 is in 3/4 time and has the following rest:

<note>
    <rest measure="yes"/>
    <duration>24</duration>
    <voice>1</voice>
</note>

I would expect to see <dot/> here. As 24 divided by 8 is 3, am I supposed to infer that this note should be dotted? Does this mean I'll have to write code for a special case where <dot/> is missing but the note is clearly supposed to be dotted?

I'm confused by this representation. I wish they'd made the type attribute mandatory myself... If anyone could explain how dotted and tuplet durations are supposed to be represented, I'd appreciate it.

Insensitive

I don't know the answer to the question, but I would point out that there's no evidence that the MusicXML experts monitor this forum. I'd suggest signing up to the list/forum at makemusic.com/musicxml/specification Meanwhile I'm deleting the XML tag, since you're clearly not interested in answers from people whose primary expertise is in XML. – Elective

Thanks for the reply, if anyone else reads this then at the time of writing makemusic don't have a forum for questions relating to the spec / interpreting the spec, however I have just noticed the mailing list Also thanks for removing the tag, I was being thoughtless! That will save me a lot of unwanted attention :) – Insensitive

Answer 1

Why should that note be dotted? If the division is 8, that means 8 units represent a quarter note. So 24 represents three quarter notes which in the case of 3/4 time is an entire bar rest.

As for tuplets I was curious about that also. Here is an example taken from the music xml site's tutorial piece 'apres un reve'. This is also in 3/4, with 24 divisions. The time-modification attributes specify the ratio of the tuplet, in this case a triplet of three eight notes.

    <time-modification>
      <actual-notes>3</actual-notes>
      <normal-notes>2</normal-notes>
    </time-modification>

The time modification above shows that three eighth notes take the duration that two normally would.

  <note default-x="92">
    <pitch>
      <step>E</step>
      <alter>-1</alter>
      <octave>5</octave>
    </pitch>
    <duration>8</duration>
    <tie type="stop"/>
    <voice>1</voice>
    <type>eighth</type>
    <time-modification>
      <actual-notes>3</actual-notes>
      <normal-notes>2</normal-notes>
    </time-modification>
    <stem default-y="-40">down</stem>
    <beam number="1">begin</beam>
    <notations>
      <tied type="stop"/>
      <tuplet bracket="no" number="1" placement="above" type="start"/>
    </notations>
  </note>
  <note default-x="122">
    <pitch>
      <step>D</step>
      <octave>5</octave>
    </pitch>
    <duration>8</duration>
    <voice>1</voice>
    <type>eighth</type>
    <time-modification>
      <actual-notes>3</actual-notes>
      <normal-notes>2</normal-notes>
    </time-modification>
    <stem default-y="-42">down</stem>
    <beam number="1">continue</beam>
    <lyric default-y="-80" number="1">
      <syllabic>single</syllabic>
      <text>que</text>
    </lyric>
  </note>
  <note default-x="162">
    <pitch>
      <step>C</step>
      <octave>5</octave>
    </pitch>
    <duration>8</duration>
    <voice>1</voice>
    <type>eighth</type>
    <time-modification>
      <actual-notes>3</actual-notes>
      <normal-notes>2</normal-notes>
    </time-modification>
    <stem default-y="-45">down</stem>
    <beam number="1">end</beam>
    <notations>
      <tuplet number="1" type="stop"/>
    </notations>
    <lyric default-y="-80" number="1">
      <syllabic>begin</syllabic>
      <text>char</text>
    </lyric>
  </note>

Alfi

"Why should that note be dotted? If the division is 8, that means 8 units represent a quarter note. So 24 represents three quarter notes which in the case of 3/4 time is an entire bar rest." Yup, I totally understand that, but as it's one note I would notate that as a dotted minim (dotted half) which is why I would have expected the <dot/> tag Cheers for the duplet example too that's really helpful! – Insensitive

No problem. There's more info about the tuplet with mixed note durations in the musicxml-tutorial.pdf too, for 'an optional normal-type element that is used when the type of the note does not match the type of the normal-notes in the triplet.' – Alfi

Answer 2

Yes, there are musicXML experts monitoring this forum :-) A whole measure rest is a symbol on its own. You don't need to/are not allowed to extend it with a dot.

Zenithal

Bob's right. The measure="yes" tag implies that it takes up the length of a measure but is represented as a whole rest -- this is standard in music notation. There is also a musicxml mailing list, btw. – Leges

What Bob and Michael said. Also, the direct link to the MusicXML mailing list is makemusic.com/musicxml/mailing-list. We do hope to move the mailing list to a forum later this year. – Panathenaea

The MusicXML forum is now available at forums.makemusic.com/viewforum.php?f=12. The mailing list archives are now searchable there. – Panathenaea

Answer 3

The <dot/> element is only used when there is a dot in the score. In your example we have a full measure rest that doesn't have a dot. It would look like this:

If you on the other hand would like to have a rest that reflects the duration of the measure, it would look like this:

And the xml code would be this:

  <note>
    <rest />
    <duration>24</duration>
    <voice>1</voice>
    <type>half</type>
    <dot />
  </note>

In your example the type attribute isn't needed because the rest attribute measure="yes" already tell us what the rest should look like.

Ensanguine