Temperamento: Canonical Text-Score Translation and Transposition Invariance in an Executable MusicXML Notation

Summary

Temperamento is a programming language in which the same program can be written as text or as a two-stave musical score. Chord relationships encode operations, while notes and their durations encode values. The paper defines how to translate between text and MusicXML, a format for exchanging musical notation, and tests whether translation and transposition preserve the program. Because its instructions depend on musical relationships, shifting the whole score to another pitch preserves its computational behaviour.