ENP Expression Designer - a Visual Tool for Creating ENP
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1. for music nota tion 5 instrument variable contains an ENP instrument object that in turn contains information about the name range etc 6 expression is the current ENP expression object that is being drawn This object can also be queried about extra information such as any user definable data stored in the expression 7 self in this case refers to the notational object the expression is associated with i e a note or a chord Different properties of the notational object including pitch start time and duration can also be used in the expression code 3 4 Preview score The preview score displays the user defined expression as it would appear in a regular ENP score The preview score is also fully editable so the user can observe how the ex pression behaves for example when the music is trans posed etc The score can also be panned and zoomed freely so that the expressions can be examined and aligned in great detail There is one additional feature to this view As de scribed above the default expression position is calculated according to the selected print position and an additional user definable offset This offset can be adjusted in the preview score by dragging the expression with the mouse The list of the graphical primitives is quite self explanatory and it is not further discussed in this paper 4 Some Expression Designer Exam ples In this Section we give two examples on how the ED ca2. Code view In the code view the user can write standard Lisp code see Figure 4 The code defines how the expression is drawn in the score The users can utilize any of the OpenGL functions provided by LispWorks There are also some special graphical primitives provided by ENP that can be used to draw for example lines poly gons circles etc The following list gives the complete set of graphical primitives currently available draw 2D arrow draw 2D box draw 2D bracket draw 2D circle draw 2D line draw 2D lines draw 2D point draw 2D polygon draw 2D quads draw 2D shape draw 2D text draw 2D texture and draw 2D triangles There are also some special variables that can be re ferred to in the code The following variables contain some useful properties of the expressions 1 x and y give the absolute position of the expres sion They are calculated according to the position of the associated notation object and other constraints These values are an aggregate of the default position calculated according to the print position and the user definable offset discussed above see Subsection 3 2 2 width gives the horizontal distance from the current notation object to the next one 3 print symbol contains the string or character de fined by the user in the properties view 4 font gives the font name as a keyword Currently the value of this variable is either times for read able text or musical symbol1s
3. There are several advantages in the ap proach presented in this paper One advantage that ENP provides is that the defined expressions can contain user definable data This means that the data can be read and written both through the graphical user interface or algo rithmically The data can then be used in for example compositional or music analytical applications Second the expressions can be dynamic since they are defined using standard Common Lisp Third in ED the expres sions are displayed in a fully functional ENP score thus the user can observe how the expressions behave for ex ample when the music is transposed or when the layout of the score is changed This approach is different form any of the existing ones For example in Finale the user definable expressions shapes are designed without the presence of any musical context The rest of the paper is structured as follows first we give a brief overview of ENP expressions Next we intro duce the ENP Expression Designer and give a few prac tical examples of its use We end the paper with some conclusions and suggestions for future work 2 Overview of ENP Expressions ENP Expressions are divided into two main categories 1 standard expressions including articulations and dy namics and 2 non standard expressions which include for example groups and Score BPF s 3 Every expres sion is attached either to a single notational object single expressions or t
4. fundamental class that provides the necessary data structures and behavior of all ENP expression 3 2 Properties view The properties view provides the following options 1 Menu category All user defined expressions are automatically added in the appropriate ENP menus where they are in turn arranged in groups according to the type and or purpose Here the user can either choose one of the existing menu categories or create a new one by providing a new category name 2 Print symbol defines the string or the character which is used as the printed representation of the expression 3 Print position There are several predefined print positions which in turn are used to determine the default print position The current choices are on stem above staff below staff above chord and notehead The individual effects of these values can be seen in Figure 3 above staff a above chord 63 on stem ry lt notehead t peloicstorf Figure 3 Five accent expressions attached to the chord Each accent is given a different print position The effect can be seen in the example along with the respective print position keyword 4 Font can currently be either times or musical symbols There are also some check boxes in the properties view These can be used to determine whether the expression is standard notation and whether the expression is saved along with the score or not 3 3
5. symbol font 5 l lt 5 Properties view Menu category User B 2 Print symbol scrape z scrape 6 scrape Font 3 LRM FORGES TIMES Ze P Print position g 3 2 ABOVE STAFF fie 4 A Standard notation M Saveable Preview Print Source Figure 5 A playing technique expression created with ED Next we briefly describe the steps needed to define the scraping expression The class name and superclass are as shown in 1 and the menu category is again chosen to be User 2 In this case it is required to define the print symbol and font typeface since the expression contains some written instructions along with the graphical infor mation 3 The expression print position is above staff as indicated in 4 The lisp code part is once again offered without any detailed explanation 5 Suffice to say that the x and y shapes are first defined and then drawn with a graphics primitive called draw 2d shape Addition ally the user defined print symbol is also drawn Finally the preview score 6 demonstrates how this particular ex pression reacts to the duration of the associated notation object due to the width parameter see code view 5 Conclusions and Future Work The current version of ED is already quite functional and can be used to quickly prototype and create new expres sions Some of the benefits in this approach are that it does not require extensive programming experience and th
6. ENP EXPRESSION DESIGNER A VISUAL TOOL FOR CREATING ENP EXPRESSIONS Mika Kuuskankare Sibelius Academy DocMus mkuuskan siba fi ABSTRACT In the present paper we introduce a new tool called ENP Expression Designer ED It is aimed at visually creating new notational attributes ENP expressions in ENP ENP in turn is a music notation program written in Lisp and CLOS with a special focus on compositional and music analytical applications Currently ENP allows to create new expressions by using Lisp and CLOS The strictly textual interface can however be demanding to those users that have limited or no experience in programming ED provides an easy and straightforward way to define new expressions through a graphical user interface Through inheritance the ED allows to reuse the built in properties of the existing ENP expressions We also pro vide a set of graphical primitives for drawing lines text etc Additionally more experienced users can take full advantage of the OpenGL graphical language 1 Introduction Especially in modern music notation there is the need for special expression markings There is an increasing amount of instrument specific playing techniques and new ones are invented all the time These markings can also be invented even piece per piece basis This makes it difficult for a music notation program to provide a comprehensive collection of expression markings Thus it is more rea sonable to provide an int
7. al representation of the expression can be seen in the preview score 7 The second note in this example is added to demonstrate how the user defined expression behaves when the associated notational object is transposed Note how the expression avoids colliding with music notation 00e ENP Expression Designer Class view Code view Class name draw 2D line x y x y 2 5 draw 2D line x y 2 0 x 0 5 y 2 5 wirebrush 1 Fdraw 20 1ine x y 2 0 x 0 5 C y 2 5D Superclass EXPRESSION 2 6 Properties view Menu category User B 3 Print symbol Font 4 f pa TIMES De E Print position ABOVE STAFF 5 standard notation Mi saveable Preview Print Source Figure 4 The wirebrush mallet symbol created with ED 4 2 A Playing Technique Scrape The second ED example focuses on a graphic expression that can be used to denote scraping an instrument 5 As we draw the scraping symbol in the score it is required have knowledge about the length or extent of the asso ciated notational object Figure 5 This information is provided with the special variable called width e09 ENP Expression Designer Class view Code view Class name Clet yshape 0 0 2 0 1 75 1 5 1 25 1 0 0 5 SS xshape loop for xx from to width sape by width length yshape Superclass 1 ca Jaah Paek EE iraw 2d shape x y xshape yshape t EXPRESSION ZE draw 2d text x y 1 8 print
8. e limited set of graphics primitives is quite easy to learn It allows to create new expressions without the need to reproduce the low level lisp code for each one The number of lines of code the user is required to write is reduced to a fraction compared to the entirely text based approach Further more the synchronized visual feedback offered by ED is a valuable property as it allows the user to design and view the expressions in their native context There are however several additional features and en hancements planned to make ED more useful as a general purpose tool First it is currently not possible to create group expressions Group expressions require more op tions and possibly a dynamic property view There are also a handful of additional methods that are user defin able which in turn require more code view type of inputs A dedicated group expression tab would be one solution to lay out the ED Window to facilitate this feature Second it should also be possible to use graphical tools for draw ing the expression definition This feature would require a graphics canvas and a set of graphical tools such as lines polygons and circles It would also bring the ED closer to the more traditional tools offered by for example Finale However allowing to combine both algorithmic and hand drawn representations would make this approach more flexible Third there is currently no means to add slots to the user defined expressi
9. erface for the user that s he can use to build custom expressions Two of the most widely used commercial notation pro grams Finale 1 and Sibelius 2 provide the possibility to create user defined expressions In Finale it is possi ble to create either text expressions or graphic expressions shapes in Finale terminology In Sibelius in turn the former group of expressions is called Symbols and the lat ter one Lines These programs provide tools to create both types of expressions However when using these tools it is usually not allowed to view the expressions in their natural context music notation In CMN 6 it is also possible to define new expressions using Lisp ENP 3 is a music notation program that has been de veloped in order to meet the requirements of computer aided composition music analysis and virtual instrument control It s purpose is to display scores using the com mon western notation Furthermore ENP provides a rich set of both standard and user definable notational at tributes called ENP expressions ENP is programmed in Mikael Laurson Sibelius Academy CMT laurson siba fi Common Lisp LispWorks and uses the OpenGL API to produce the notational graphics ED is a visual tool that can be used to create custom expressions in ENP ED provides a simple protocol that helps to define the basic properties of the user definable expressions It also allows to define the visual appear ance using Lisp
10. is Press Urbana 1973 6 Schottstaedt B Common Music Notation Be yond MIDI The Handbook of Musical Codes MIT Press Cambridge Massachusetts 1997
11. n be used to create new expressions In the first example wirebrush we build a simple percussion mallet symbol 5 This example demonstrates the use of some of the graphical primitives In the second example in turn we create an expression that uses the knowledge about the spacing of the associated notational objects to fill a given space in the score Due to space limitations the examples are given with out any detailed explanation The key points however are discussed along each example Some knowledge about Lisp is beneficial to thoroughly understanding the pro vided code examples 4 1 A Percussion Mallet Symbol brush Wire As our first exercise we create a simple percussion mallet symbol denoting a wirebrush see Figure 4 We begin the expression definition by providing a unique class name wirebrush 1 In this case there is no need for any additional inheritance other than the basic expression behavior Thus the default value ex pression displayed in the superclass menu is sufficient for our purposes 2 The menu category is chosen to be User 3 Print symbol and font typeface in this exam ple do not have any use since the expression in question is purely graphical 4 In music notation these kinds of instructions are usually written above the staff 4 and the print position is selected accordingly 5 In code view there are three lines containing some drawing instructions 6 Finally the graphic
12. o a group of notational objects group ex pressions ENP provides a collection of standard tempo dynamics and articulation symbols Furthermore it in cludes a set of non standard notational attributes New expressions can be created through inheritance Figure shows a collection of some standard and non standard ENP expressions Next we present some of the basic components of ENP Expressions 69 group Figure 1 Some standard and non standard ENP expressions including 1 score BPF 2 group 2 1 The Basic Expressions Components of ENP All ENP expressions share some common properties These include for example print symbol default print position user definable offset and font scaler While this is not a complete list these properties al ready define a bulk of the visual appearance placement and behavior of the expressions The specific functions of each of the properties are further discussed in subsections 3 2 and 3 3 Figure 2 shows these properties in a musical context user definable f offset print aaa user definable amp E x offset e default print position Figure 2 The components of an ENP expression On the left the graphical representation of an accent On the right some common attributes to all ENP expressions 3 ENP Expression Designer ED is a visual tool for rapid expression designing and pro totyping The work flow typically consists
13. of three steps 1 defining class and inheritance 2 defining proper ties and 3 defining the visual appearance coding All these steps can be executed in a single ED window The ED Window in turn contains the following components class view properties view code view and preview score an example ED window is shown in Figure 4 Expressions are defined by first entering a unique class name and its superclass Next some additional properties are defined These include among other the font typeface Finally the graphical outlook of the expression is defined by entering some Lisp code in the code view The visual appearance of the new expression is shown in the preview score at the bottom of the ED Window There are also buttons for displaying the preview and generating the expression definition in Lisp The preview button refreshes the preview score to give the updated vi sual representation of the expression The print source button in turn generates a text document containing the Lisp code needed to store and restore the user defined ex pression Change in any of the aforementioned properties provides synchronized feedback in the preview score In the following Subsections we examine in detail the components of the ED Window 3 1 Class view In the class view the user must specify a unique class name and a superclass By default all the user defined expres sions inherit from the built in expression class This is the
14. on classes through ED This is of primary importance when designing more complex objects that for example have different kinds of graphi cal representations depending on attributes selected by the user Finally although ED currently creates the menus for inserting the expression in the music notation there should be the possibility in ED to define the appropriate context sensitive menus for the expression itself This would re quire a dedicated menu editor to be embedded in ED The ED project was launched only recently and as can be seen in the missing features list above there is still quite a lot of work to be done The current version is more of a proof of concept at this time It requires some redesigning and additional coding to integrate all the listed features in ED However the fully mature application should prove to be beneficial not only for casual users but also for the more experienced ones 6 Acknowledgments The work of Mikael Laurson has been supported by the Academy of Finland SA 105557 7 References 1 Finale User Manual 2 Sibelius3 User Guide 3 Kuuskankare M and M Laurson ENP2 0 A Music Notation Program Implemented in Common Lisp and OpenGL Proceedings of the International Computer Music Confer ence Gothenburg Sweden 2002 4 Read G Music Notation Victor Gollancz Ltd 1982 5 Risatti H New Music Vocabulary A Guide to Notational Signs for Contemporary Music Univ of Illino
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