GUIDO Music Notation

Jordan Smith
MUMT 611
24 January 2008
 Overview
GUIDO is a music notation language.

1. GUIDOs goals
2. How GUIDO notates music
3. How GUIDO engraves music
4. GUIDO applications:
Gide
NoteServer
SALIERI
MIR
5. Pros and Cons of GUIDO
 Guido dArezzo
Credited with inventing music notation

Image source: http://nrm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Guido_van_Arezzo.jpg

1. Neumatic Notation

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Neume2.jpg

2. Conventional Music Notation

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bachlut1.gif

3. Modern Engraving

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chopin_Prelude_No._7.JPG

4. GUIDO Music Notation

{ [\title<"No.3"> \tempo<"Andantino">
\staff<1> \clef<"g"> \key<+1> \meter<"3/8">
\i<"p"> d2/8 |
\sl(\dim(d h1)) h
\sl(\dim(h g)) g
\sl(\cresc(f# a c2))
\sl(c h1) ],
[ \staff<2> \clef<"g">
\key<+1> \meter<"3/8">
_/8 |
h1 _ _
g _ h0
\sl(c1 f# a)
\sl(a g)]
}

Example source: http://www.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/AFS/GUIDO/demos.html

 1. GUIDOs goals
Adequacy:
Simple musical concepts are simple to
encode
Only more complex concepts are complicated
to encode
Adequacy

Renz 2002 p. 9, 18
 1. GUIDOs goals
Adequacy:
Simple musical concepts are simple to
encode

Human readability
 Human readability

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"

standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE score-
partwise PUBLIC "-//Recordare//DTD
MusicXML 2.0 Partwise//EN"
"http://www.musicxml.org/dtds/partwise.dtd">
<score-partwise version="2.0"> <part-list>
<score-part id="P1"> <part-
name>Music</part-name> </score-part>
</part-list> <part id="P1"> <measure
[ \clef<"treble">
number="1"> <attributes> \meter<"4/4"> c/1 ]
<divisions>1</divisions> <key>
<fifths>0</fifths> </key> <time>
<beats>4</beats> <beat-type>4</beat-type>
</time> <clef> <sign>G</sign>
<line>2</line> </clef> </attributes> <note>
<pitch> <step>C</step> <octave>4</octave>
</pitch> <duration>4</duration>
<type>whole</type> </note> </measure>
</part> </score-partwise>

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusicXML
 1. GUIDOs goals
Adequacy:
Simple musical concepts are simple to
encode

Human readability

Perfect formatting

Multifunctional
 2. Notation
Basic Notation
Advanced Notation
Extended Notation
 2. Notation
Basic notation
[ Sequences ]
{ Segments }
c do d&& bis1*1/4
\clef<treble>
all together: [ \slur( f g {f/2, a2, c}) ]
 2. Notation
Advanced notation
\slurBegin:1 \slurEnd:1
\clef<type=g2, size=0.5>
\glissando<style=wavy,dx1=2mm,dy1=1.5hs >
 2. Notation
Extended notation
Micro-tonal features
Exact timing
User-defined GUIDO tags and events
 3. Engraving
Translation between abstract
representation (AR) and graphical
representation (GR)

GUIDO file > (parse) > AR > (physics) > GR

3. Engraving

Renz 2002 p. 88
3. Engraving

Renz 2002 p. 94
3. Engraving

Renz 2002 p. 97
 4. Applications: NoteServer
(and NoteViewer)

Quickly create passages of music for any

purpose: pedagogy, WEB, etc.
 4. Applications: Gide
A syntax highlight editor for GUIDO files
 4. Applications: SALIERI
A structure-oriented environment for
composition, manipulation, and analysis of
music.

(Think MATLAB.)
Hoos, Kilian et al. 1998
Hoos, Kilian et al. 1998
 4. Applications: MIR abilities
Step 1. Create database using PERL (GUIDO is
text-based)

Step 2. Pre-calculate transition probability matrices

for absolute pitch and rhythm of each element in
database

Step 3. Hierarchically cluster pieces

Step 4. Search!
 5. Pros and Cons of GUIDO
i. Incomplete, and inactive i. Translates to and from major
since 2003 formats: XML, Finale, Sibelius.
Extended notation and
postscript output of
NoteViewer are
missing
but

ii. Is being human-writable an ii. Perhaps not for authoring, but it

asset? is certainly human-editable

iii. Poor at representing the

vertical and horizontal iii. like every other computer-
simultaneously based format!

Plus, its complete.

Question period!
 Bibliography
Hoos, Holger H., Keith A. Hamel, Kai Renz, Jrgen Kilian. 1998. The GUIDO Notation Format: A Novel
Approach for Adequately Representing Score-Level Music. ICMC 98 Proceedings: 451-4.

Hoos, Holger H., Jurgen Kilian, Kai Renz, Thomas Helbich. 1998. SALIERI: A General, Interactive
Computer Music System. ICMC 98 Proceedings: 385-392.

Hoos, Holger H., Keith A. Hamel, Kai Renz. 1999. Using Advanced GUIDO as a Notation Interchange
Format. ICMC 99 Proceedings: 395-8.

Hoos, Holger H., Kai Renz, Marko Grg. 2001. GUIDO/MIR: an Experimental Musical Information
Retrieval System based on GUIDO Music Notation. ISMIR 01 Proceedings: 41-50.

Hoos, Holger H., Keith A. Hamel. 2004. The GUIDO Music Notation Format Version 1.0. Specification
Part 1: Basic GUIDO. http://www.salieri.org/GUIDO/docu/spec1.htm (accessed 23 January 2008).

Renz, Kai, Holger H. Hoos. 1998 A WEB-based Approach to Music Notation using GUIDO. ICMC 98
Proceedings: 455-8.

Renz, Kai. 2002. Algorithms and Data Structures for a Music Notation System based on GUIDO Music
Notation. PhD diss., Darmstadt University of Technology.