MAX 2002 International Conference Musical Application using XML September 19 - 20, 2002. State University of Milan, Italy From: http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/About.html See: http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/ http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Abstracts.html http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Program.html http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Committee.html http://xml.coverpages.org/conf.html#max2000 --------------------------------------------------------------------- About the Conference This conference will focus on XML application concerning music representation. The XML language could be a meta-representation of music information for describing and processing music information within a multilayered environment, for achieving integration among structural, symbolic, score, MIDI, and digital sound levels of representation. Furthermore, the focus is on how the XML language could integrate music representation with already defined and accepted common standards. There is currently no defined, independent standard for representing music information that can describe and process all the different layers which characterize music information. For each layer of music information, there is one or more accepted standards (e.g. MIDI for performance, NIFF for notation and so on) and/or one or more proprietary formats. None of them can be suitably applied to other layers. The idea is that the XML language will make easier the integration, interchange, and translation from one layer to another of music information across different applications and even for different users. In spite of the acute need for a standard to define applications that deal with music, at the level of WEB distribution, distribution via networks, CD-ROMs, DVDs and the like, there does yet exist a universally accepted way to encode sound, music, symbolic representation of music, sound, notation and the like. IEEE Project Authorization Report 1599, accepted on September 28, 2001 by the Standard Activity Borad of the IEEE, goes in that direction and overcomes the deficiencies of past de-facto standard, which are either incomplete or not widely accepted: -- the widespread MIDI standard addresses only production of sound files and deals with pitch, duration, and timber, without any consideration to all other information of a staff, leaving that to developers of sequencers -- SMDL (Standatd Music Description Language), a musical subset of SGML, from which XML has been derived too, could have been a complete standard, including video and images, and was approved in 1996 as an ANSI draft, but has not had any further development and, even though it has been extended with multimedia concepts borrowed from HyTime, has had no success because of the lack of software -- NIFF is a binary format and thus is not readable by humans and requires specific applications for reading, manipulating, analyzing and performing research in a document. To conclude, a music meta-language defined with XML allows: the realization of musical files with an intrinsic value, independent of the application used for their creation, of applications used to view them, and of the platform; extensibility of the language in function of particular needs; good match with the need for structures in musical information. The conference focuses on reasearch results by the groups involved in music application of XML. Furthermore, this conference seeks to promote discussion and interaction between researchers, practitioners, developers, companies, users of tools, technology transfer experts, and project managers. Of particular interest is the exchange of concepts, prototypes, research ideas, and other results which could both contribute to the academic arena and also benefit business and the industrial community. Topics of interest include but are not restricted to the following aspects: Analysis, processing, and synthesis of music information Score editing Traditional music publishing New media music publishing Music delivery via internet Protection formats and tools for music Watermarking techniques for protecting score and audio files Music features recognition Music contents processing Viewing and listening tools for music Music databases indexing Audio and score segmenting Music education techniques Interactive music contents --------------------------------------------------------------------- Conference Program See: http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Program.html Abstracts DAY 1 - 19 September 2002 15.00/16.30 - Session I 15.00 Opening (G. Haus) 15.15 Introduction to the IEEE SA Working Group on Music Application of XML (D. Baggi) 15.30 G. Zoia, R. Zhou, M. Mattavelli "MPEG Audio Coding and XML: samples, models, descriptors" 16.00 G. Tremblay, F. Champagne "Automatic marking of musical dictations by applying the edit distance algorithm on a symbolic music representation" 16.30/16.45 - Coffee break 16.45/18.15 - Session II 16.45 J. Steyn "Framework for a music markup language" 17.15 D. L. Baggi "A Proposal for a Regular Grammar To Parse Jazz Chords Notation" 17.45 M. Longari "A case study: Prepared-Piano Notation in XML" Prepared-Piano performance by Pino Devita DAY 2 - 20 September 2002 9.30/11.00 - Session III 9.30 M. Lepper "Modeling Music using XML - Some Basic Consideration-" 10.00 G. Haus, M. Longari "Towards a Symbolic/Time-Based Music language based on XML" 10.30 G.C.S. Frederico "Actos: A Peer-to-Peer Application for the Retrieval of Encoded Music" 11.00/11.15 - Coffee break 11.15/12.15 - Session IV 11.15 M. Good "MusicXML in Practice: Issues in Translation and Analysis" 11.45 P. Roland "The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI)" 12.155/14.15 - Lunch break 14.15/17.30 - IEEE SA Working Group on Music Application of XML Meeting --------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstracts See: http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Abstracts.html G. Zoia, R. Zhou, M. Mattavelli "MPEG Audio Coding and XML: samples, models, descriptors" ABSTRACT The different MPEG standards are well-known for their media compression capabilities. Starting with MPEG-4, the goal of the standardization activity has also included media representation, indexation and retrieval. MPEG-4 joins advanced compression technologies with high-level media representations such as synthesized content and scene descriptions. MPEG-7 defines standard media descriptors and the way in which these descriptors can be compressed if desired, handled and extended in user defined description schemes. In this paper first the main audio-related features of the last MPEG standards, which go well beyond simple compression, are briefly reviewed. Then some examples of applications are developed showing how XML can be profitably used in conjunction with MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 schemes in the field of musical applications. Article PDF G. Tremblay, F. Champagne "Automatic marking of musical dictations by applying the edit distance algorithm on a symbolic music representation" ABSTRACT A key practice of basic musical training is the use of musical dictations for ear training and training in music writing. Marking such dictations for large groups of students can be a lot of work. In this paper, we present a tool that can help automate the marking of musical dictations. The edit distance, which computes a similarity metric between two strings, has been used in various areas such as string/text analysis, protein/genome matching in biocomputing, and musical applications, for example, music retrieval or musicological analysis. The tool we present can be considered an application of the edit distance to the marking of musical dictations. Computing an edit distance on musical scores requires using an appropriate symbolic representation. We use MusicXML, an XML application for standard Western music notation. Given an appropriate Document Type Definition for MusicXML, existing Java tools can be used to obtain a MusicXML parser. Such a parser, given appropriate input files, then generates an intermediate form (DOM object) on which analyses and transformations are performed in order to compute the edit distance. In turn, the edit distance is used to give a mark as well as identify some of the key errors. Article PDF J. Steyn "Framework for a music markup language" ABSTRACT Objects and processes of music that would be marked with a markup language need to be demarcated before a markup language can be designed. This paper investigates issues to be considered for the design of an XML-based general music markup language. Most present efforts focus on CWN (Common Western Notation), yet that system addresses only a fraction of the domain of music. It is argued that a general music markup language should consider more than just CWN. A framework for such a comprehensive general music markup language is proposed. Such a general markup language should consist of modules that could be appended to core modules on a needs basis. Article HTML PDF D. L. Baggi "A Proposal for a Regular Grammar To Parse Jazz Chords Notation" ABSTRACT A piece of improvised Jazz is identified by its harmonic structure of changes, placed in the harmonic grid. For each chord, or change, a particular notation is used which is well known by Jazz musicians, and appears also in other contexts, such as guitar charts. While there are minor differences and inconsistencies in this notation, the meaning is always clear to practitioner of the art. Purpose of this work is to propose a simple grammar, or standard, which, while formalizing the notation, does not impose constraints, allows extension and easy recognition of unknown symbols, new symbol combinations and definitions. Article PDF M. Lepper "Modeling Music using XML - Some Basic Consideration -" ABSTRACT The paper tries to give basic outline of a holistic and analytic approach to capture all 'thinkable' kinds of music in a generic and aspect-oriented XML-based architecture. Article PDF G. Haus, M. Longari "Towards a Symbolic/Time-Based Music language based on XML" ABSTRACT The representation of Symbolic Music Information is the fundamental element of Music Information Processing. Among the several approaches developed in history the markupped one seems to be the most promising. Starting from SMDL, some XML proposals are briefly analyzed. We present our approach of layered representation of Symbolic Music Information based on the space-time organization of events. Our model splits music information in layers of representation and takes the symbolic one as the gravity center. Moreover, the symbolic layer contains a space-time structure by means of which all other layers are brought together. Then we discuss other XML standard that can be usefully related to the XML representation of music information, such as security and vector graphics standards. Lastly, we deal with some open problems in the field of music processing that might be of interest for our view of symbolic representation. Article PDF M. Good "MusicXML in Practice: Issues in Translation and Analysis" ABSTRACT Since its introduction in 2000, MusicXML has become the most quickly adopted symbolic music interchange format since MIDI, with support by market and technology leaders in both music notation and music scanning. This paper introduces the key design concepts behind MusicXML, discusses some of the translation issues that have emerged in current commercial applications, and introduces the use of MusicXML together with XML Query for music analysis and information retrieval applications. Article PDF P. Roland "The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI)" ABSTRACT This paper draws parallels between the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and the proposed Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), reviews existing design principles for music representations, and describes an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) document type definition (DTD) for modeling music notation which attempts to incorporate those principles. Article PDF Demo papers G.C.S. Frederico "Actos: A Peer-to-Peer Application for the Retrieval of Encoded Music" ABSTRACT This article describes Actos, a Peer-to-Peer application developed in Java that uses the JXTA open platform. Actos uses XML-based ChordML for the symbolic representation of music including chords, lyrics and metainformation. It employs XML-based ChordQL to perform chord sequence queries. Article PDF M. Longari "A case study: Prepared-Piano Notation in XML" ABSTRACT In this paper we want to show how easy it is to use the XML language to extend music notation with new features, and how to utilize them for the prepared-piano notation. Article PDF ---------------------------------------------------------- Program Committee See: http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/max2002/Committee.html Denis L. Baggi Centro CIM della Svizzera Italiana (CIMSI) Centro Galleria 2 CH-6924 Manno, Switzerland Tel. +41 91 610 89 91 Fax +41 91 610 89 70 e-mail: baggi@icsi.berkeley.edu http://www.computer.org/tab/cgm/baggi.htm Goffredo Haus Universita' degli studi di Milano Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione via Comelico n.39 20135 Milano Tel: +39 2 50316222 e-mail: haus@dsi.unimi.it http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/membri/haus/hauscurr.html Maurizio Longari Universita' degli studi di Milano Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione via Comelico n.39 20135 Milano Tel: +39 2 50316382 e-mail: longari@dsi.unimi.it http://www.lim.dsi.unimi.it/membri/LongaCurr.html Members of the IEEE Comnputer Society Technical Committee on Computer Generated Music http://www.computer.org/tab/cgm/tc_cgm.htm phone and fax: +39 02 50316222