MusicXML and MEI homework

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Compose a measure

Compose one measure of music in Finale, MuseScore, Noteflight, Sibelius, etc. and export the score to a MusicXML file.

Your composition should have at least ten of the following musical features:

  • a slur
  • a tie
  • a rest
  • a chord
  • a beam
  • a key signature
  • some lyrics
  • multiple verses of lyrics
  • an accidental (sharp, flat, natural, double-sharp, double-flat).
  • an implicit accidental (a note which should be played with an accidental, but it is not displayed in front of the note since it is in the key signature or a previous note at the same diatonic pitch in the measure).
  • a dynamic marking (p, mp, mf, f, etc.)
  • a crescendo/decrescendo hairpin/wedge
  • an articulations (fermata, staccato, tenuto, accent, etc)
  • two or more layers/voices
  • two or more staves (such as grand staff for piano, or two separate instruments)
  • two or more measures
  • instrument name/abbreviation
  • transposing instrument
  • a tempo marking (Allegro, Lento, Adagio, etc)


Copy/Paste into online editor

Open the MusicXML file in a text editor and copy the contents. This can be done on the command line in MacOS with the command:

   cat file.xml | pbcopy

Then go to the webpage:

   http://verovio.humdrum.org&k=em

and paste the MusicXML data into the text editor on the left side of the page, which should result in a view like this:

MusicXML contents and notation rendering after pasting onto VHV webpage."

Locations of features in MusicXML

Record the XML tree path to each of the features that you created in your composition. For example, a note would have a path from the root node like this:

    score-partwise/part/measure/note

Not all features will be explicitly encoded within a single element (chords for example), so describe in general how it is encoded if it is not obviously encoded. If a feature is encoded as an attribute use the following style, which shows where a measure number is stored in MusicXML:

    score-partwise/part/measure@number


Locations of features in MEI

After recording the path to the features in MusicXML, Type alt-M on the same webpage. This should convert the MusicXML data into MEI data. For each of the features that you recorded the XML path in the MusicXML data, do the same for the MEI data.

What to hand in

Send Craig and Eleanor your MusicXML file, the converted MEI file and the path locations of your features in MusicXML and MEI data.