The ottava object | MNX specification

# The ottava object

Type: Dictionary

An ottava (octave shift), traditionally notated with a marking such as "8va", tells a musician that the affected note(s) are being rendered a number of octaves up or down from their normal appearance on the staff, for sake of readability.

Note: the "pitch" attribute of any affected note should be encoded as the sounded pitch. In other words, the absence or presence of an octave shift does not affect a note's "pitch" attribute; the octave shift only affects the note's graphical display.

## Attributes

Name | Type | Required? | Description
--- | --- | --- | ---
end | measure rhythmic position | Yes | The location of the last event that is affected by this ottava. Take care when working with grace notes. If the ottava ends at a rhythmic position that is directly preceded by grace notes, use "graceIndex: 0" on the rhythmic position in order to include those grace notes in the ottava.
orient | orientation | No |
position | rhythmic position | Yes | The location of the first event that is affected by this ottava. Take care when working with grace notes. If the ottava starts at a rhythmic position that is directly preceded by grace notes, omit "graceIndex" from the rhythmic position in order to include those grace notes in the ottava.
staff | staff number | No | The staff number to which this ottava applies, if such a designation makes sense. If not provided, the default is 1.
value | ottava amount | Yes | The type of ottava.
voice | voice name | No | The voice to which this ottava applies. By default, an ottava applies to all voices in the part; using this attribute will narrow the scope of the ottava to only the voice you specify.

Plus globally available attributes: _c, _x, id

## Parent objects

This object is used by the following parent objects:

- part measure: "ottavas"

## Examples

This object is used in the following examples:

Ottavas (8va)