Your chance to weigh in on typesetting

[steltz]

The moderators are working on a set of minimum guidelines for new typesets. I'm asking those of you who are performing musicians to say what you most need to see for clarity. Alternatively, just tell us what your worst reading experience was with a badly copied piece of music. So far we have:

Wrong notes or missing notes or bars.
Very small printing.
Collisions between elements on staves.
Rhythms that aren't proportionally spaced.
Unnumbered bars. (My 2 cents -- I hate multi-measure rests that have been numbered in 10-bar increments because I can't see where the phrases start)
No rehearsal numbers.
Repetitive patterns with no indication of how many times they repeat.
No courtesy accidentals after barlines.
Bad page turns.
No cues after long rests.
Incorrect symbols, for example "~~~~~" instead of the traditional trill squiggle.
Grace notes or cues that are full size, rather than small.
Unlabelled cues.
Badly chosen cues -- something not that audible or recognizable.
Elements that didn't come through from score to individual parts, e.g. tempo changes (this is just plain lack of proofreading).

Anybody want to add anything?

[Edit] Just thought of another -- slurs that stop somewhere in between notes, so you can't tell exactly which note to articulate.

[haydenmuhl]

I think the biggest thing for me is access to the typesetting source, whether it's MusicXML, Lilypond or something else. I don't expect amateur typesetters to be 100% perfect, so if I notice a typo, I would want to be able to correct it, then re-upload the corrected version.

Was MusicXML decided on as the standard for new typesets here? Are other typesetting systems still allowed?

[pml]

There’s no mandated typesetting format, because IMSLP doesn’t host MusicXML content, it hosts PDFs. It’s really up to the content provider to deal with this, and what we’re trying to establish is, what the minimum standards should be. That shouldn’t prescribe the use of one particular notation format if the contributor is capable of surpassing the minimum requirements with another format/software package.

The emphasis we’re looking for is on getting the content right, high-quality; not a free-for-all where it is acceptable for contributors to upload low-quality, error-filled typesets and have other users change them willy-nilly (when generally uploaders aren’t allowed to overwrite other user’s files, by the way). It might fit under the rubric of the CC-by-sa licence, but I would be very skeptical that all IMSLP contributors would want to go there.

The question is, what are the issues with PDF typesets that you hate? Here are some of mine:

* badly thought-out repeat structures that involve needless page-turning back and forth
* ugly slurs, or inconsistently typeset ones (follow the rules!)
* badly spaced scores that result in a huge waste of paper (I like trees, and prefer to minimise paper wastage)
* technically deficient scores and parts – a significant proportion of new typesets on IMSLP meet this criterion.

[Carolus]

Philip, the last example you listed is actually a scan of the editor's manuscript. The point remains, however. I'm also glad to see someone is thinking about this issue, which has grown over time as we approach 100,000 files in the archive.

[kalliwoda]

(Edit)
There are a few things in a computer typeset, that should be banned [edit: discouraged] on imslp, if they occur globally in the entire score:

Music spaced so close that accidentals are hidden by the preceding notehead.
Trills (or other ornaments) that are shown by their "midi-dump" equivalents
Multimeasure rests that are never grouped together.
- these can be avoided even with only rudamentary familiarity with a notation program

and then other things everyone has even encountered in expensive commercial parts, that should be avoided in a new typeset and every musician will be forever grateful no to have to deal with them...

[pml]

Carolus, it isn't manuscript – it’s a very low–quality computer-typeset printout (almost dot matrix) that has been subsequently scanned. My point stands – it is a “new typeset” of rather bad quality: in fact, possibly the worst I have seen represented on the website.

[steltz]

Just thought of another one -- clef changes in the middle of a run. Actually, there is more than one way to do an unintelligent clef change . . . .

[josiah]

Two more:

Neglecting courtesy accidentals! Especially if they exist in the original, but even if not; but the solution to this is to always have a(nother) performer give the part a once-over. (This is closely tied to a common midi-related error of leaving default accidentals, which may be confusing, especially after transposition. Please don't ever require a musician to play in G# or D# major!)

Inconsistent or incongruent muted/unmuted passages. I have been known to threaten physical violence[1] to composers/editors who leave these markings out. Do you really want me playing with a mute for the rest of the piece?

1. I have never actually gotten violent over this matter, and my threats were always at least half-joking.

[Notenschreiber]

Having posted a lot of new typesetted scores I should join this discussion. First of all, I agree with the efforts to improve the quality of such scores.
Especially the fact, that they may contain incorrect informations about the compositions is disturbing. If the sources are available at IMSLP too, this
may be less worse. In any way it would be a good idea to encourage users to put a notice about such mistakes on the discussion page of the editor to
give him a chance to improve his score. This would be much better than only to lament the quality of the score.
On the other hand I want to adwise against a chivvy (LEO: "Hetzjagd" in german) of the uploaders of new typesetted scores. In almost every case they
just want to serve the philosophy of IMSLP to make music available for musicians and others all around the world, free of charge. Some details of home
maked scores may be less perfect, but this is no reason at all, to bann such scores from the archive, as suggested above.
Notenschreiber

[kalliwoda]

@Notenschreiber
You are right, we should never discourage new contributors by banning their first upload because of some problems.
But there could be some friendly advice on how to improve their typesets with minimal additional effort, and some guidelines to help avoid the most glaring inadequacies.

Regarding errors - which are almost impossible to avoid - we should encourage contributors to state the source of their typeset and to upload these sources, even if difficult to read.

[jpaden]

This may well be outside of the intention of the question, but I would find it immensely useful to have a source file, not just the PDF, of the score available. I would love to be able to hear the score as well as read it, and the source would generally allow me to do that. More importantly for me, the source would also give me an electronic place to start when working on a new arrangement of a piece -- it would save me from having to re-type absolutely everything from scratch. And of course, if there was an edit that I would like to make for my own prints, I could make the edit quickly without re-typing too.

Anyway, just my thoughts as an arranger and soloist. I do understand though if IMSLP does not wish to get into hosting the source files, and still greatly appreciate what you are already doing.
-JP

[Notenschreiber]

There seems to be a misunderstanding. What I (and I think Kalliwoda too) mean with "source" is not the source file of a notation
program, but a manuscript or an early print of the composers work for example.
Notenschreiber

[jpaden]

Ah yes, there was a misunderstanding. What I would find useful is the typeset source that produced the PDF -- MusicXML, Lilypond, ABC, MuseScore, Finale, etc. -- something I could listen to and potentially copy-paste from. (Though freely-available file formats would be nice, I wouldn't think of imposing a particular software standard on contributors.) So then I guess that makes my thought more like haydenmuhl's suggestion, versus a discussion of scans of original source material.
-JP

[Carolus]

@Philip: OMLGG (Oh My Lady Gaga!) - you're right. That has to be one of the earliest attempts at computer typesetting out there. It's even more primitive than "Professional Composer" which dates back to the 1980s. Amazing.

[pml]

Hi JP,

as pointed out, discussing MusicXML or source files is a derailment of the discussion – the issue about including files aside from PDFs is an interesting one, but its already been had: here, here, here, here…

Please stick to topic, which is standards for typesetting, not whether you can borrow/modify other people’s work.

And yes, OMLGG! That Lassus score deserves to be archived somewhere… in a dungeon, preferably.

Cheers, PML