The staff-type data type

The staff-type value can be ossia, editorial, cue, alternate, or regular. An ossia staff represents music that can be played instead of what appears on the regular staff. An editorial staff also represents musical alternatives, but is created by an editor rather than the composer. It can be used for suggested interpretations or alternatives from other sources. A cue staff represents music from another part. An alternate staff shares the same music as the prior staff, but displayed differently (e.g., treble and bass clef, standard notation and tablature). It is not included in playback. An alternate staff provides more information to an application reading a file than encoding the same music in separate parts, so its use is preferred in this situation if feasible. A regular staff is the standard default staff-type.