Interested in creating support for non-western notation systems
Hi there,
I'm offering up my consultation and expertise in exchange for a feature that I think would greatly benefit a niche but nevertheless large community: Byzantine Chant.
As it sits, the community in Greece and beyond has two resources:
1. Badly formatted fonts that require endless searching for the proper characters and no easy way to enter in text/lyrics.
2. A prohibitively and extortively costly piece of software called Melodos, which although plays back the music in some kind of strange way, is not necessarily worth the cost for the average church musician in Greece.
SO. I would like to assist in developing a staff datatype that will accomodate the notation aspect of this music.
I will first describe how I would like to enter in notation.
1. The staff would be a one-line staff.
2. The notes could work similarly to a drumset staff, except they would all be on the same line, and the notehead would change to the various symbols shown in the above image. As this is an intervallic notation, it would be nearly impossible to playback.
Secondly, I'm wondering if this is something I can do by editing existing datatypes, or if it's something that needs to be implemented in software. I have limited programming skills (I was a CS minor but never really took that path as a career and became a musician instead), but I could negotiate through what datatypes have to be created or modified in order to implement this.
Due to this being an open source software, I'm assuming (let's face it, I'm hoping) that the solution can just be solved without rebuilding the software and can be accomplished in just some of the data files.
Can anyone kind of guide me on where to start in implementing this feature?
Cheers
-Andrew
Comments
Hi,
There is no image attached.
Someone already started to look into this. He wrote http://byzantinenotation.wikia.com/wiki/ByzantineNotation_Wikia
He made a font, and he already dive in the MuseScore code.
@sraduvictor, if you are around, speak up.
Hi Andrew,
As Nicholas said, I've been looking at a way to write byzantine chant and have it play back.
For writing the music I found the fonts from St Anthony Monastery very usefull : http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/music/ByzMusicFonts.html
For having the music play back I looked into translating the byzantine chant into western chant and play it in musescore. For this I started writing the rules of translation on the site Nicholas mentioned. I've also started writing a site that would translate byzantine chant in a musicxml file which can be imported in Musescore : http://www.byzantinetranslation.appspot.com/
The site and wiki are not finished, and I'd appreciate getting help in finishing them.
In reply to Hi Andrew, As Nicholas by sraduvictor
Hey man-
Yes, great. I understand already these resources, though.
Ephrem's work on his EZ Psaltica font is nice, but I don't think it's the best way. After all, entering in text is a pain.
An option, however, is to create (as I mentioned) a one-line staff that has the proper symbols attached as noteheads. The best part about this method, is that all of your other symbols could be placed in a palette, and would automatically center on the neumes. A perfect "one size fits all" solution.
As for right now, we do have the option of basically creating a one line staff, fill it with quarter notes, hide everything, and then enter the chant as lyrics below. I haven't tried it very much, but it is an idea.
If you would like to work on this together, drop me an email at andrewgorny@gmail.com
cheers
-Andrew
In reply to Hey man- Yes, great. I by Andrew Gorny
In my experience, it's easier to keep the communication public but feel free to do whatever you like.
In reply to Hey man- Yes, great. I by Andrew Gorny
Hi Andrew,
What would be different in entering notes on a one line staff, from entering fonts in a document? If it's the visual approach of selecting the symbols, that can also be achieved by adding a plugin to ckeditor the program I'm using to enter the symbols.
Also are you aware that the fonts from Father Ephrem have a program where you can click on the fonts and they will be entered automatically in Word, and that he has a script for Word that adjusts the symbols in their proper place?
Thanks,
Radu
Understanding somehow Byzantine music (mostly by ear and historical/theoretic perspective starting with Wellesz, Tillyard, Høeg and others, have read almost everything available in English), I can say that this task is very complicated.
I can think something different.
If you need a MIDI keyboard for performance, you could use Ableton Push, which is completely free from piano-keyboard. You can map any scale to that keyboard and tune it microtonal. Than you just use steps or jumps according to the notation.
Concerning notation, the fact is that MuseScore is FLOSS, in the fact it is limited when we speak about fonts. You need to change the source by yourself if you want to do it.
But MuseScore has one very nice thing: tuning of individual notes. I don't know if it exist in Finale or Sibelius.
But this is what I would do:
Use software where you can change fonts.
Type music in the staff normally, and than tune it normally (according to the byzantine scales).
Finale has an option to put VISUALLY all notes at the same pitch, regardless what they are. So you apply that setting to all notes and they will be placed visually (sound remains) at the same line.
Change each notehead to the symbol of Byz Notation, thereafter remove all other items such as barlines, clefs etc.
That would playback and look OK.
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www.notat.io forum for Notation.