Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

dstone wrote:

No modifers/effects or rhythm symbols, but at least it's TTF so it's scalable without pixelation.

I'll look into that. What I'm currently using is also based on TTF fonts. It just turns the results into PNG files for easy access on the net. The idea with this thing is to enable people to easily write web-usable notation. Naturally the same thing scales for printing or just storing notation, but that's more like a bonus.

dstone wrote:

As I might have mentioned, I'm working on a similar project so we should definitely end up sharing file formats for compatibility.  Or even more collaboration, if that works.

Yeah, I would love to work together with people. I have bunch of small applications done for my own use. Most of them lack decent user interfaces at this point and thus I haven't given them to anyone yet. I plan on polishing them a bit and placing them on a site I'm working on so that everyone can get the advantage that computers have to offer for aspiring shakuhachi players.

I'm actually a tad curious if all this would work over the net rather than using dedicated programs you need to download and run. High quality and easily usable interface may be a tad tricky to make, but currently all that notation you see in those pictures is done using a simple web browser. If I can find a way to write all this so that one can simply go to some site and start working, I think I'll do that. It would save me from the problems with different people using different systems and thus needing different software. Time will tell how well that works.

dstone wrote:

Also nice for collaborative composition or sharing a finished work.  But maybe not so nice for offline use.

You can, to some extent, run web services like that locally. Still, we are heading more and more towards a world where there is a connection available everywhere. Local applications are becoming less and less important. Still, I'm sure that some kind of local mock web server would do the trick.

dstone wrote:

On the shared file format...  I think a lot about software design.  Too much, probably -- job hazard.  I think it's excellent that more than one person wants to work on this stuff and also good even if we end up making different applications that target different uses.  Just like flutes or paper or ink, there doesn't need to be (nor could there be) one "best" program to fit all needs.  But if we can keep a large degree of compatibility between data/file formats then things can progress at whatever pace and at least users won't have their work locked into one programmer's mercy.  <end-philosophy/>

Certainly. There are also different ways to approach this issue. My current application is basically just a typesetting program rather than a notation program. It can make nice notation sheets but writing the actual notation is painful. Say, if you wrote an application that is easy to use and can turn it into something my program understands, you can use my program to print your notation out. This is a fairly typical approach in Unix world, where you typically have one program that works with the user and another that actually performs the task. It is a nice way to share the workload when one person can focus on one aspect of the problem (printing good-looking notation, being user-friendly etc.)

dstone wrote:

Drop me an email and we can discuss more.

Will do.

dstone wrote:

On a related note...  There's a very interesting (and mature) western notation project...   with the emphasis placed on beautiful engraved-style typesetting...  LilyPond  I looked seriously at their architecture and wondered if shakuhachi notation could be a sane extension to that project...  my conclusion was no.  But that's certainly not the last word on it.

I figured that it wouldn't work to use an existing engine. Shakuhachi notation has some concepts that don't map well into western notation. The way timing is done can be very different. Writing in different direction (top to bottom rather than left to right) may require changes to the layout system. There are also several different notations in here rather than just one. A common wisdom in the programming circles is that if your changes are rather dramatic, making something new is always faster and better.

Since you brought Lilypond up, however, I figured that I'd throw out another name. http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ is a project that uses Lilypond to write all kinds of classical pieces and then shares them online. Since they are old songs and re-written by someone, it is possible to distribute them for free to anyone. Although I can see the differences between shakuhachi notation and western notation (shakuhachi notation by itself is of limited use), I do have to admit that I'm a bit drawn to that idea. I hate to even think just how much shakuhachi notation has been lost over the course of years.