Beyond MIDI: The Handbook of Musical Codes [Hardcover]

Eleanor Selfridge-Field (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0262193949 | ISBN-13: 978-0262193948

The establishment of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in the late 1980s allowed hobbyists and musicians to experiment with sound control in ways that previously had been possible only in research studios. MIDI is now the most prevalent representation of music, but what it represents is based on hardware control protocols for sound synthesis. Programs that support sound input for graphics output necessarily span a gamut of representational categories. What is most likely to be lost is any sense of the musical work. Thus, for those involved in pedagogy, analysis, simulation, notation, and music theory, the nature of the representation matters a great deal. An understanding of the data requirements of different applications is fundamental to the creation of interchange codes.The contributors to Beyond MIDI present a broad range of schemes, illustrating a wide variety of approaches to music representation. Generally, each chapter describes the history and intended purposes of the code, a description of the representation of the primary attributes of music (pitch, duration, articulation, ornamentation, dynamics, and timbre), a description of the file organization, some mention of existing data in the format, resources for further information, and at least one encoded example. The book also shows how intended applications influence the kinds of musical information that are encoded.Contributors : David Bainbridge, Ulf Berggren, Roger D. Boyle, Donald Byrd, David Cooper, Edmund Correia, Jr., David Cottle, Tim Crawford, J. Stephen Dydo, Brent A. Field, Roger Firman, John Gibson, Cindy Grande, Lippold Haken, Thomas Hall, David Halperin, Philip Hazel, Walter B. Hewlett, John Howard, David Huron, Werner Icking, David Jaffe, Bettye Krolick, Max V. Mathews, Toshiaki Matsushima, Steven R. Newcomb, Kia-Chuan Ng, Kjell E. Nordli, Sile O'Modhrain, Perry Roland, Helmut Schaffrath, Bill Schottstaedt, Eleanor Selfrdige-Field, Peer Sitter, Donald Sloan, Leland Smith, Andranick Tanguiane, Lynn M. Trowbridge, Frans Wiering.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This volume, likely to become a standard reference work, describes anextraordinary number of approaches to the representation of musicalinformation for purposes of computer processing. It is a considerableachievement, for it sorts and orders work in a confusing and sometimesembattled field, analyzing each encoding method in logical sequence and inlight of the specific purposes for which it was designed." Raymond Erickson , Dean of Arts and Humanities, Queens College, CUNY;author of DARMS: A Reference Manual

About the Author

Eleanor Selfridge-Field is Professor of Music and Symbolic Systems at Stanford University and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities.

Peter Feaver is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University and Director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 630 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (August 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262193949
• ISBN-13: 978-0262193948
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,937,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reference for anyone interested in encoding of music, March 23, 2006

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calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond MIDI: The Handbook of Musical Codes (Hardcover)

The purpose of this book is to provide a general description, with encoded examples, of numerous ways of representing music in the computer. This book is a collection of chapters by different authors each describing a musical code, usually the format of an input or data file for a music program. There is usually not enough information given to make a comprehensive description, but enough information is presented so that the reader has a good idea of what each code is like and can probably implement an interpreter of a reasonable functionality. Readers looking for a description of a particular code would be advised to check first, as there are some notable omissions. This is not an inadequacy on the part of the publishers, as obtaining permission can be difficult. It is also possible that there are important omissions due more to the editors not knowing of the existence of particular codes. A more serious flaw is the fact that the chapters were contributed over a number of years and some of the earlier ones, including contact details, were not updated prior to printing.

The book distinguishes between three types of musical codes, depending on whether its primary function is to play sound, to produce printed notation, or to aid in analysis and research. It also describes some proposed interchange formats. The descriptions are authoritative wherever possible, being obtained from the authors of the programs in question or other experts. There are some annoying 'typos' such as swapped or missing examples and incorrect appendix definitions, but they should be obvious enough not to mislead many readers. The inclusion of English Braille and the proposed New International Standard, although unexpected, is to be commended.

The book concludes with a section entitled "Reflections", which seems to equate "difficult" with "impossible" in an alarming way. Despite the title of the section, I don't think that it is clear enough that the reader has now left the factual world of file formats where "this byte does that" and is entering that of opinion, mostly about interchange possibilities. There are also some guidelines for those who find it necessary to write a new music code.

This book is essential reading for anyone writing their own music program or devising their own "musical code". The book has a website that includes errata, updates and complementary material for different chapters, and a list of links to other sites dealing with musical codes. Since Amazon usually throws out reviews with web addresses in them, suffice it to say that you need to type "CCARH Publications Books" into Google, and the first address you see will show a list of websites for books, and this book should be the first in the short list shown.