» Dezrann documentation

Dezrann uses json files to encode an “analysis”, that is a set of labels describing music annotations. It is intended to be very small (at most a few kilobytes) and refers to the music notation, referring only to (symbolic) musical time and being independent of any audio file. The .dez format makes no assumption on the annotation concepts, they are left to the user.

Here is such a .dez file:

{  
  "labels": [
    { "type": "S", "start": 8.5, "ioi": 7.5, "staff": "1"},
    { "type": "CS1", "start": 8.25, "ioi": 7.75, "staff": "2"},
    { "type": "S", "start": 0.5, "ioi": 7.5, "staff": "2"},
  
    { "start": 8, "comment": "Second voice enters"},
    { "start": 16 },  
    { "type": "Pattern", "start": 16.5, "ioi": 1.5, "tag": "h", "layers": ["predicted"]},
    
    { "type": "Structure", "start": 16, "ioi": 8, "tag": "codetta"},
    { "type": "Pedal", "start": 114, "duration": 10, "tag": "Tonic pedal"},
    { "type": "Cadence", "start": 64, "tag": "v:PAC"}
  ],
  
  "meta":{
    "date": "2021-01-06T13:50:38.306Z",
    "producer": "Dezrann c6c80150",
    "title": "Fugue in C minor",
    
    "layout": [
      { "filter" : { "type": "Structure" }, "style" : {"line": "bot.1"} },
      { "filter" : { "type": "Pedal" }, "style" : {"line": "top.1", "color": "#bbbbbb"} },
      { "filter" : { "type": "Harmony", "tag": "I" }, "style" : {"color": "#ff7777"} },
      { "filter" : { "type": "Cadence"}, "style" : {"color": 'by-tag'} },
      { "filter" : { "type": "Pattern", "layers": ["predicted"] }, "style" : {"line": "top.2"} }
    ]
  }
}

Some examples: (TODO, put LouisC examples with layout block) - Fugue BWV 847 - Die Wetterfahne, from Schubert Winterreise Dataset

labels: list of annotations

The labels list is the only mandatory part of a .dez file. Each label may have the following attributes:

• start (musical time, float, mandatory): This is the only mandatory field.
• ioi (musical time, float, default 0): inter-offset-interval (IOI), that is duration from the start of the first note to the start of the last note
• duration (musical time, float, default 0): actual duration, that is duration from the start of the first note to the end of the last note

A label with no ioi neither duration is supposed be “instant” (and will be displayed without any width). The ioi may allow better comparison between perceptually similar labels, however the duration is closer to what people usually mean by “duration”.

A label can have both a duration and a ioi. The conversion between the two is sometimes ambiguous, in particular in a polyphonic context (see dezrann#846).

• staff (integer, default 0): staff concerned by the label, 1 being the staff on the top. If this is 0 or not defined, the label relates to all the score. (TODO: allow name/id references also)

• type (string, default ""): base type of the label, from a controled vocabulary. Dezrann displays some default types, but the default list could be configured for particular usages.

• tag (string, default ""): further details on the labels, depending on the type. This should again be somewhat controlled according to each analyst ontology/puropose.

• comment (string, default ""): comment, in free text. This can have several lines.

• layers (string list, default ""): annotation sources, such as ["tovey"] or ["predicted, algorithm5"]

Note that a label can also have graphic attributes (such as line), but this is generally not recommended: One should use instead the meta.layout block as described below.

Thus the labels list should be as independent as possible from any actual implementation of Dezrann or any other visualisation platform.

Labels can be exported from music21 with our music21.schema package. (2022: This has to be updated/replaced with the output of the RepresentingHarmony group).

Musical time

start, duration and ioi are expressed in quarter notes from the beginning of the score.

In Dezrann, they are displayed, by default, in measure/beat/offset, the goal being to adhere as closely as possible to “common musicological practice”. The meter information in info.json is currently too rigid: time-signature (default 4/4), time-signature-upbeat (default 0). The modelin of flexible meters is in discussion with collaborators and will be introduced in Q1 2023.

TODO: Can be encoded as measure/beat/offset in .dez ?

meta: analysis and piece metadata

The meta block list metadata attributes of the analysis and possibly of the piece (#899).

meta.layout: label formatting options

The meta.layout block lists rules defining styling options for the labels, as in { "filter" : { "type": "Pedal" }, "style" : {"line": "top.1", "color": "#bbbbbb"} }.

Each rule has

• a filter attribute, now supporting type and layers queries.
• a "style" attribute, defining styling and formatting options. The currently supported option is:
  • line: By default, out-staff labels are displayed on six lines: top.1, top.2, top.3 bot.1, bot.2, bot.3
  • color will be supported dezrann#937 The ‘by-tag’ special value indicates that a different color is applied to each tag.

References

• M. Giraud, R. Groult, E. Leguy. Dezrann, a Web Framework to Share Music Analysis. International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR 2018), pp.104-110.

• L. Garczynski et al., Modeling and editing cross-modal synchronization on a label web canvas, Music Encoding Conference (MEC 2022)