The horizontal order of nested group delimiters (brackets, braces, etc.) is unspecified in MusicXML; however, it can be controlled by the ‘default-x’ attribute of <group-symbol> in case the application's default positioning produces unwanted results (and the application actually supports this attribute). In the following (using a smaller staff size), staves 1 to 4 have a four-staves brace on the left and two two-staves braces to the right. On staves 4 to 8 it's exactly the opposite (i.e., the four-staves brace is to the right), using the same ‘number’ attribute values as before but different ‘default-x’ values. Note also that the four-staves brace has the element <group-barline> set to value ‘no’ while the two-staves braces use value ‘Mensurstrich’. This means that the Mensurstrich bar lines should be grouped into two staves each. 5 40 no brace brace Mensurstrich brace Mensurstrich brace no brace Mensurstrich brace Mensurstrich 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy 1 0 major 4 4 G 2 4 1 4 1 light-heavy