A direction is a musical indication that is not necessarily attached to a specific note. Two or more may be combined to indicate words followed by the start of a dashed line, the end of a wedge followed by dynamics, etc. For applications where a specific direction is indeed attached to a specific note, the direction element can be associated with the first note element that follows it in score order that is not in a different voice.
By default, a series of direction-type elements and a series of child elements of a direction-type within a single direction element follow one another in sequence visually. For a series of direction-type children, non-positional formatting attributes are carried over from the previous element by default.
The
<direction>element.A direction is a musical indication that is not necessarily attached to a specific note. Two or more may be combined to indicate words followed by the start of a dashed line, the end of a wedge followed by dynamics, etc. For applications where a specific direction is indeed attached to a specific note, the direction element can be associated with the first note element that follows it in score order that is not in a different voice.
By default, a series of direction-type elements and a series of child elements of a direction-type within a single direction element follow one another in sequence visually. For a series of direction-type children, non-positional formatting attributes are carried over from the previous element by default.
See
https://www.w3.org/2021/06/musicxml40/musicxml-reference/elements/direction/