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EnglishWhat Are the MEI Schema and MEI Guidelines?
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The MEI schema is the core set of rules that defines how musical documents are encoded in machine-readable XML, while the MEI Guidelines are the companion documentation that explains each component of the MEI model and offers best-practice suggestions. You need both: the schema tells you what is structurally valid, and the Guidelines tell you how to use that structure well. This applies to anyone encoding music notation documents — librarians, historians, theorists, and technologists — who want a shared, community-defined standard rather than a one-off format.
The MEI schema
The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) is a community-driven, open-source effort to define a system for encoding musical documents in a machine-readable structure. Its results are formalized in the MEI schema, described on the site as:
- A core set of rules for recording the physical and intellectual characteristics of music notation documents
- Expressed as an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema
In practice, the schema is what you validate against. If you write an MEI file, the schema determines which elements and attributes are permitted and how they may nest. It is the machine-checkable contract.
The MEI Guidelines
The MEI Guidelines complement the schema. According to the site, they provide:
- Detailed explanations of the components of the MEI model
- Best-practice suggestions for encoding
Where the schema answers "is this allowed?", the Guidelines answer "is this the right way to represent what I mean?" — for example, how to choose between encoding approaches for a given notational feature.
How they work together
| Aspect | MEI schema | MEI Guidelines |
|---|---|---|
| Form | XML schema | Explanatory documentation |
| Purpose | Define valid structure | Explain components and recommend practice |
| Question it answers | Is this encoding valid? | Is this encoding appropriate? |
| Role | Machine-checkable rules | Human-readable guidance |
A practical workflow: read the relevant Guidelines section to decide how to represent a feature, write the encoding, then validate it against the schema to confirm structural correctness.
Where to find versions and resources
The site organizes its resources so you can pick the version that fits your project:
- MEI 5 — the current release line
- Development versions — for work tracking upcoming changes
- Previous versions — for compatibility with older projects
- Archive — historical material
Alongside these, the site lists Schemas and Namespace, Tools, Tutorials, and Documentation, plus background material such as a Bibliography, Pedagogy & Praxis, and the MEI Logo.
Getting involved
MEI is co-hosted by the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (Mainz) and the RISM Digital Center (Bern). If you want to become an active member, the site points to information on the MEI community and how to join. Development happens on GitHub, where you can submit issues or make pull requests to solve them. Community channels include contacts, forums, and interest groups, and there is an annual Music Encoding Conference — MEC 2027 is scheduled for 7–10 June 2027 at the German Historical Institute in Rome, Italy, with the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra as a partner and additional venue.