multi-measure rest attributes

[lemzwerg]

A multi-measure rest consists of two elements, a rest symbol and a number. MusicXML provides font-size and color attributes in the <measure-style> parent element; my conclusion is that these attributes are intended to be applied to both the rest symbol and the number. To only modify the number it is currently necessary to reset the rest's attributes via the <note> element.

• If this interpretation is correct it should be documented. However, I consider this as awkward and not really in the spirit of MusicXML since attributes are additive and not subtractive everywhere else.
• If it was an oversight to not provide a possibility for changing the appearance of number and rest separately, I suggest to add a new element <multiple-rest-number> as a child of <multiple-rest> to allow that.

[mscuthbert]

It seems to me that there are errors in the first two interpretations: the height of the multi-measure rest graphical elements cannot scale without the staff scaling. The whole (semibreve) rest is always 1/2 the height of a staff-space (+/- the staff-line width). The breve (2-measure) element always takes a space, and the larger one (imperfect long, or 4-measure) element must take up the size of two spaces. These height scalings must be respected, otherwise there is no point in using these symbols.

[lemzwerg]

IMHO, you are touching a very fundamental flaw of MusicXML's documentation. The fact that scaling is only allowed for glyphs is not explicitly mentioned in the specification! In some places it seems to be completely arbitrary of what is classified as a glyph and what not. For example, as shown in the above example, the 'church rests' are glyphs in LilyPond and thus scalable. Many symbols are used outside of a staff at larger sizes, and rest symbols might also be used this way. I can imagine to have larger or smaller 'standard multi-measure rests' for special purposes – I'm thus not sure that your argument holds.

Anyway, I don't insist on changing the size of a multi-measure rest. However, I think it should be possible to change the color of such rests, which has to be handled similarly to the font size.

[mscuthbert]

Dear Werner (@lemzwerg) -- I would like to kindly ask you to rephrase your comments to show some respect for those who have worked for decades on MusicXML on a fully volunteer project, especially Michael Good, but also myself and others on the team.

I believe that frustration at this point is a two-way street, and I hope that we can all tone down the rhetoric of insisting that mistakes have been made so that contributions can continue.

Thank you.
Michael C.

[lemzwerg]

I'm very sorry, and I apologize for my wording – English is not my mother tongue. I don't want to show any disrespect, and being (co)maintainers or main developers of various software projects (including FreeType and LilyPond), which are all driven by volunteers only, I know exactly how large the number of issues can become because people in charge don't have enough time to work on fixes.

Alas, I don't have sufficient time either right now to really contribute to MusicXML's documentation (besides the trivial fixes that I submitted), but maybe this changes.

[mscuthbert]

Thank you Werner.

(Und Vielen Dank! Ich kann fast gar nicht auf Deutsch gut schreiben [nur 4 Jahren in Gymnasium], also, es freut mich so viel dass Sie (können wir du benutzen?) probieren so viel auf Englisch zu schreiben).

I will work hard to make the documentation better.