Music21j: An Interactive Framework for Musical Analysis
Copyright (c) 2013-24, Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert, some rights reserved (BSD).
Music21j is a Javascript reinterpretation of the Music21 Python package, a toolkit for computer-aided musicology, now with intuitive HTML/Javascript interfaces. Some things music21j offers are:
- The ability to visualize and hear changes in Streams quickly (using Vexflow and MIDI.js)
- Connections (via Web Midi or JazzSoft plugin) to MIDI devices.
- Music theory and analysis modules at the level of music21 ca. 2014
- A repository of modules such as metronomes, keyboards, and automatic transcribers.
Though it does not have all the power of Music21 Python, music21j can help with a number of research problems in music history and theory. The introduction to the Python package will say more about it (it's better documented). The "namespaces" tab above will give introductions to some features of music21j. At this point we're focusing on documenting usage; developer docs will come later.
Music21j requires your users to have a relatively recent web browser -- the project targets browsers no more than 30 months old. Safari is the only major desktop browser for which there is no out of the box support for MIDI devices.
This README appears in both the GitHub home page and the documentation home page; to make the following links work, go to the documentation page at http://web.mit.edu/music21/music21j/doc/ .
Begin at the {@link music21} namespace (click the link or use the menu above), or start with a specific one such as {@link music21.note} or {@link music21.stream} or a Class such as {@link music21.note.Note} or {@link music21.stream.Stream}.
(Ignore "Modules" they're not useful and duplicate the namespace pages).
Install by downloading a copy of the music21 code to your own webserver.
% npm install music21jIf this line (npm install) doesn't work, download the
latest version of node.js from https://nodejs.org/en/download/
A guide to installing music21j on Windows would be appreciated.
The files in music21j are best viewed by running your own
webserver (rather than using file:///... links). We've
included a small script to start you up:
$ cd ~/git/music21j
$ grunt webpack
$ python start_python_server.pyThen navigate to http://localhost:8000/testHTML/ for some demos.
To use music21j in your own page, place in a html page like this (this assumes that you're using the python server above).
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>music21 test</title>
</head>
<body>
<script src="/node_modules/music21j/releases/music21.debug.js">
</script>
<script>
const n = new music21.note.Note('F#');
const s = new music21.stream.Stream();
s.append(n);
s.appendNewDOM();
</script>
</body>
</html>or use it in your own Javascript/Typescript project:
$ npm install --save music21jimport * as music21 from 'music21j';
const n = new music21.note.Note('F#');
// etc.Music21j was originally intended for self-hosting, so embedding is not yet as simple as it should be.
To load soundfonts from other locations (like in a CDN),
(1) set a global m21conf variable to disable loading soundfonts,
(2) load the music21j script, and (3) set the new soundfont location,
and (4) load the soundfont.
This fragment shows how to do it. A working implementation is in the
testHTML directory as sfElsewhereCDN.html.
<body>
<script>
window.m21conf = { loadSoundfont: false };
</script>
<script
src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/music21j/releases/music21.debug.min.js"
></script>
<script>
music21.common.urls.soundfontUrl = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gleitz/midi-js-soundfonts/gh-pages/FluidR3_GM/';
music21.miditools.loadSoundfont('clarinet', i => {
const tn = music21.tinyNotation.TinyNotation('4/4 c4 d e f g1');
tn.instrument = i;
tn.playStream();
});
</script>
</body>0.16 beta
Music21j is released under the BSD 3-Clause License. Essentially you can do with it what you want so long as you leave in my copyright statements and do not represent that I endorse your product.
Thanks to the following packages (among others) for making music21j possible:
- Vexflow - music notation in HTML5
- midicube - audio processing of MIDI based on MIDI.js
- Jazzsoft - plug-in for accessing MIDI in the browser in the absence of WebMIDI Api.
- qUnit - testing framework
- jsdoc - makes this documentation possible
The Python version of music21 was supported by grants from the Seaver Institute and the National Endowment for the Humanities and supported by the Music and Theater Arts section of MIT.
Build and watch with
$ grunttest with
$ grunt testYou might get an error that looks like this which you can currently ignore:
Access to XMLHttpRequest at
'file:///soundfonts/midi-js-soundfonts-master/FluidR3_GM/acoustic_grand_piano-ogg.js'
from origin 'null' has been blocked by CORS policy
We hope to fix it later, but for now, we're not testing audio output.
for running tests one time without watch, you can use:
$ grunt test_no_watchYou'll need to be part of the npm dev team.
Two steps
1: Build the latest version by running:
$ gruntThen update the version number and commit with:
$ grunt publish(It also tries to build the
docs via grunt jsdoc (currently failing).
The template is specified in jsdoc-template/jsdoc.conf.json)
For a non-backwards compatible release, edit the minor version number manually in this README.md, in main.ts, and in package.json. Then do all the steps again from the start. :-)
Then run the copy script with:
$ npm publishwhich will copy the current contents of build in releases
and publish on npm.
Before publishing, every once in a while run (in the music21j directory)
$ node_modules/.bin/npm-check-updatesand if it looks like something to update, run
$ node_modules/.bin/npm-check-updates -u
$ npm installThese docs may change someday in preparation for v.1.0 release.