I'm pursuing my vision of "music-i18n": Open source music software that works for microtonal music and worldwide musical cultures.

It's not a from-scratch effort, quite the contrary: I'm trying to tie in existing music standards (MIDI, MusicXML, SMuFL, MEI, etc.) and ensure that FOSS systems (MuseScore, Verovio, smaller components) implement enough of those standards to support music-i18n.

Sometimes, this also includes extending the standards themselves when they are not fully capable of representing some non-mainstream musical aspect. For example, MusicXML lacks the ability of representing multiple accidentals per note (whereas MEI does), which is a must for microtonality.

I started down this path around 2018, as a music player who got interested in arranging Arabic songs in a "Real Book" style. It opened a giant rabbit hole that I'm still far from having fully explored.

Now and then, I collaborate with other devs who are interested in adjacent topics. I would love to hear from some of you here!

As an entry point, I recommend checking out the "progress report" I wrote last October: https://blog.karimratib.me/2024/10/01/music-grimoire-progres... - I'm currently drafting this year's update. My main demo is at https://blog.karimratib.me/demos/musicxml/