Skip to content

neumaRk

Version: neumaRk 0.5.6 — Public preview

A human-readable, machine-readable language for music.

neumaRk is a textual way to write music that is clear for humans
and precise enough for machines.

It sits between traditional musical notation and modern digital workflows, making music easy to write, share, parse, transform, and version.

Designed for fast writing

neumaRk is designed to be written directly from a computer keyboard.

It does not require a mouse, graphical palettes, or object-based selection procedures. Music is written as text, using a small and consistent set of symbols.

After an initial learning curve, this approach enables a very high writing speed, especially for simple and common musical content.

The language is intentionally focused on writing only what is essential: in most cases, many details can be deduced automatically from context, without being explicitly stated.

neumaRk is not intended for large, complex orchestral scores. It is optimized for musical parts with one or a few voices, chords, and structural information.

It is particularly well suited for lead sheets, sketches, harmonic structures, and working contexts where speed, clarity, and flexibility matter more than control over visual engraving.

Music, written as text

Music is structured, temporal, and expressive — yet most digital formats either focus on sound (audio) or on graphics (scores).

neumaRk focuses on meaning.

It describes:

  • what happens in the music,
  • when it happens,
  • and how elements relate to each other,

using plain text.

A neumaRk file can be read, understood, edited, and shared without special tools.

Typically, neumaRk music is stored in plain text files with the .nrk extension.

The extension helps tools and editors recognize neumaRk documents, but it is not required: what matters is the content, not the file name.

For musicians

You can use neumaRk to:

  • write leadsheets quickly;
  • sketch musical ideas without worrying about layout;
  • share music in messages, repositories, or links;
  • keep versions of your work;
  • focus on harmony, rhythm, and structure.

If you can read chord symbols and rhythmic patterns, you can read neumaRk.

For developers and tools

neumaRk is also designed to be:

  • deterministic to parse;
  • stable in meaning;
  • independent from rendering;
  • friendly to version control systems.

It enables:

  • automatic score rendering;
  • playback engines;
  • converters to other formats;
  • collaborative editing tools.

One language, different levels of detail

The same music can be written:

  • compactly, for speed and sharing;
  • clearly, for human reading;
  • explicitly, for tools and validation.

You choose how much detail to show. The music stays the same.

Not a replacement, but a foundation

neumaRk is not meant to replace traditional notation or the tools musicians already use to produce scores (Sibelius, Dorico, MuseScore, Lilypond and others).

It focuses on describing the musical intent, leaving engraving and visual layout to specialized software.

Open, evolving, and focused

neumaRk is an open specification. Its first public version is available today, and it is designed to evolve carefully and transparently.

If you care about music and structure, neumaRk is for you.

Where to go next

  • Learn what neumaRk is → Overview
  • Explore the language → Specification
  • Follow changes → Changelog