Marking the score

Ensembles and stacked instruments added several parts to the score. This page covers the elements that turn a bare grid into a printed sheet: bow spans, cued passages, annotations, and metadata.

Bow spans

<bow> marks the start and stop of a bowing gesture on a string instrument. It pairs type="start" with type="stop" and carries a direction attribute (in or out):

<bow type="start" direction="out"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ร"/><bow type="stop"/><note pitch="ม"/>

The span covers ด and ร, then ม plays without the bow mark. From ซออู้ in ท่อน 1:

<measure number="3">
  <rest/><bow type="start" direction="out"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ร"/><bow type="stop"/><note pitch="ม"/>
</measure>

Bow spans have zero duration. They do not count as beats and can cross <group>, <measure>, and <line> boundaries freely. A single-note span is valid: one note with both start and stop.

Parenthesis: cued passages

<parenthesis> marks a passage as cued or dimmed. Adding dim="true" dims the passage visually:

<parenthesis type="start" dim="true"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ร"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ล"/><parenthesis type="stop"/>

From ระนาดเอก in ท่อน 2, a dimmed passage spanning two measures:

<measure number="1">
  <parenthesis type="start" dim="true"/><rest/><rest/><rest/><note pitch="ร"/>
</measure>
<measure number="2">
  <note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ด"/><note pitch="ด"/><parenthesis type="stop"/>
</measure>

Like bow spans, parenthesis markers have zero duration and can cross boundaries freely.

BR: New line

<br> opens vertical space in the rendered score. It is a self-closing element with no attributes:

<structure>
  <br/>
  <annotation>เพลงลาวดำเนินเกวียน ...</annotation>
  <br/>
  <direction>...</direction>
</structure>

The master score uses <br> to space a description annotation away from the direction block. Use it sparingly; the grid already provides structure.

Annotations with alignment

<annotation> with <text align> controls where text sits in the cell:

<annotation>
  <text align="left">ท่อน 1</text>
  <text align="center">Lao Duang Duen</text>
  <text align="right">หน้า 1</text>
</annotation>

The align value can be left, center, or right. Plain text in an annotation is left-aligned by default.

The design invariant: if you want it printed, you type it. A section’s name attribute stays internal to the file. What appears on the page is what the arranger put into an <annotation> or a credit.

Credits and metadata

The <header> can carry several metadata elements:

<header>
  <title>ลาวดวงเดือน</title>
  <composer><text align="right">ทำนอง: พระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ กรมหมื่นพิไชยมหินทโรดม</text></composer>
  <lyricist><text align="right">เนื้อร้อง: พระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ กรมหมื่นพิไชยมหินทโรดม</text></lyricist>
  <arranger><text align="right">รวบรวมและดัดแปลงจากหลายแหล่ง</text></arranger>
  <tuning reference="khrueang-sai"/>
  <license>PUBLIC DOMAIN</license>
</header>

<lyricist> names the lyric writer.
<arranger> names who adapted or transcribed the piece.
<tuning> records the tuning system. The reference attribute names a standard tuning.
<license> states the copyright terms.

These are metadata for the file and the tools that read it. Whether they print on the page is a rendering decision.

Nathap

<nathap> records the drum cycle the piece is played over. It sits in <direction> and is metadata on the same terms as <chan>:

<nathap value="ลาว"/>

It carries the information to editors and playback engines. It does not generate a printed label.

Next, see Validating and going further for schema validation, the Playground, and where to go from here.

Try it in the Playground