[Haskell-cafe] music-related problem

[Michael Mossey]

erik flister wrote:
> 
>     That's what I want to do. I'm asking about a good way to write the
>     algorithm that traverses the notes and reconstructs the document
>     with the correct duration in each note. 
> 
> 
> why isn't this as simple as 

Erik,
I'm learning from your code examples, but I don't understand how this 
turned into an argument about simplicity. I never said it was complex. I do 
admit it's probably simpler than my initial approach.

Maybe I should take a step back and describe my goals. I am experimenting 
with algorithms for putting a "human touch" on midi playback. I will use 
Finale to enter the music, then export as MusicXML to my software. Getting 
from MusicXML---which is a complex format that encompasses everything from 
notational subtleties to performance subtleties---into a relatively simple 
internal representation is truly the easy part. The real meat of my project 
is the code to perform the music.


> foldr'ing something like this over the xml 
> notes (assuming monophony and that they are listed in order of start time)?

In a MusicXML document, you can't assume

   - that the notes are in order of start time
   - monophony
   - that two tied notes are immediately adjacent in the data

None of that is true. I conceive of this problem as multiple passes. On the 
first pass, I translate XML notes into a convenient internal 
representation, on the second pass sort them, then make a pass to figure 
out ties. Whether this is the best approach, I do not know. I am here to learn.

Regarding my use of Rational, it's because I'm representing *notated* 
durations or positions in time, which are always fractions of integers. 
Suppose I give the command to my program to play via midi everything from 
bar 1 beat 1 to bar 2 beat 2 1/2. I want to use Rational so I know 2 1/2 
means 2 1/2 and not 2.49999999999. (*) However, *performed* times are a 
matter of tempo, accel, rit, trills, tremolo, arpeggio etc., and are 
probably best conceived as Real.

I don't quite get this:

 > forall x. (Real x, Fractional x) => x if you're picky.

Thanks,
Mike

(*) I may want to use the location of a note (bar and beat) as the key in a 
Map, which I believe should be done with Rational and not Float.