PY2MUSICXML: Software for Prototyping Musical Ideas in Python

This dissertation presents Py2MusicXML, which is a Python library allowing users to design algorithms in Python that are converted to MusicXML, a standard interchange format for music notation software. Py2MusicXML engaged in the Object-Oriented Programming paradigm to represent musical ideas - concrete and abstract - as objects in Python. This paradigm, and the potential for representation, offers compositional and musicological directions that can be exploited for development of compositional ideas easily represented as numbers or code. Py2MusicXML allows for designs to be readily translated through a collection of Python objects that represent elements of musical notation. These objects are designed for prototyping ideas and producing notation of these ideas. I include movements from my composition Words for Music, Soft and Sogetto Cavato which are discussed as examples to demonstrate Py2MusicXML for their composition and are discussed as use cases for Py2MusicXML.