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If you look broadly at other music-encoding systems, you will find periodic coverage in our yearbook Computing in Musicology (1985-2008), which are indexed in RILM and now included in the extended RILM subscription. Brief title information can be found at
<a href="http://www.ccarh.org/publications/books/cm/" id="LPlnk">http://www.ccarh.org/publications/books/cm/</a>. Later issues are available from the MIT Press. Various issues in early notational styles are presented in Vols. 6, 8, 10, and 12.
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Digital Resources for Musicology (drm.ccarh.org) contains information on open-access projects. Its companion ADAM (Archive of Digital Applications in Music) features projects that originated in the mainframe era. See especially the work of Nortbert Böker-Heil:
<a href="https://adam.ccarh.org/" id="LPlnk">https://adam.ccarh.org/</a>.</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> mei-l <mei-l-bounces@lists.uni-paderborn.de> on behalf of Janek Spaderna <janek.spaderna@pluto.uni-freiburg.de><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, March 19, 2021 12:21 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> mei-l@lists.uni-paderborn.de <mei-l@lists.uni-paderborn.de><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [MEI-L] First efforts to bring modal notation to MEI</font>
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<div class="PlainText">Hello everyone,<br>
<br>
as a project for university I am looking into the challenges of bringing<br>
support for modal notation to MEI. I am quite new to both modal notation and<br>
MEI so please don’t hesitate to let me know in case I mix things up, miss<br>
something or end up writing straight up wrong stuff.<br>
<br>
Instead of directly thinking in terms of a (potential) concrete encoding I<br>
would like to discuss the elements and concepts of modal notation first.<br>
Below you can find the thoughts I had so for in this regard.<br>
<br>
In my opinion thinking this through beforehand can help because we can get a<br>
feeling on which level an encoding should work (rather purely visual or should<br>
it include/require analysis of some (which?) sort).<br>
<br>
The only prior discussion about this I could find is a thread initiated by<br>
Joshua Stutter about two years ago [1]. (Did I miss something?) It touches on<br>
some of the concepts which exist in modal notation but have disappeared in<br>
mensural music but is mostly concerned with finding a concrete encoding for<br>
some piece of music.<br>
<br>
<br>
# Visual elements of modal notation<br>
<br>
The distinctive visual elements are only very few: lines, clefs, notes, tractus<br>
and lyrics.<br>
<br>
Regarding notes there are some special cases:<br>
<br>
a) notes can be grouped into ligatures<br>
b) a note can have a plica attached<br>
c) notes can be followed by currentes, making it a coniunctura<br>
d) the last note in a ligature can also be coniunctura<br>
<br>
Cases a) and b) also occur in mensural notation; about c)/d) I am not sure, at<br>
least I think I do not have seen a way to encode it in MEI?<br>
<br>
Also for c) there is a difference in musical meaning wether there is a note<br>
followed by up to three lozenges or if there are more than three. The former<br>
corresponds to a ternaria whereas only the latter is truly a coniunctura.<br>
<br>
Tractus serve multiple purposes:<br>
<br>
1. It groups notes into ordines.<br>
2. It indicates syllable changes.<br>
3. It indicates alignment of different voices in organum passages.<br>
<br>
<br>
# Concepts of modal notation<br>
<br>
## Tempora, perfectiones, ordines<br>
<br>
The rhythmic feeling is based on perfectiones which consist of three tempora.<br>
If not changed by context a brevis has a length of one tempus, a longa of two.<br>
Only having seen a few transcription I still got the feeling that it is quite<br>
common to number the perfectiones.<br>
<br>
Notes are grouped by tractus into ordines. The duration of an ordo is not fix<br>
and can encompass one or more perfectiones. The tractus which ends an ordo is<br>
usually transcribed as a rest with a context dependet duration.<br>
<br>
<br>
## Discantus/organum purum<br>
<br>
On one side there is the discantus, on the other the organum purum. In between<br>
the two lives the copula.<br>
<br>
In discantus passages each voice follows a mode which can be recognized by a<br>
specific pattern of ligatures. The mode then tells which notes in the ligatures<br>
are longae and which are breves. Additional notes---be it from overlong<br>
ligatures not fitting the patterns or coniuncturae---live outside the<br>
longa/breve classification.<br>
<br>
This concept does not apply to organum purum. As I understand it the most<br>
important bit here is finding a way to encode the visual alignment of the<br>
voices. Karen Desmond writes in one of her responses to the aforementioned<br>
thread on the mailing list [2]<br>
<br>
> Ideally you would probably want to number the perfections and then you would<br>
> simply tag your tenor notes as occurring within a certain perfection.<br>
<br>
Whilst she notes other problems with this idea I am wondering if this would<br>
even be feasible in organum purum passages as I thought we do not know which<br>
notes are longae and which are breves. As I read it, Joshua shares my<br>
sentiment [3]<br>
<br>
> I'm against tagging in a particular perfection as that is implying that the<br>
> music proceeds in a constant modal rhythm and has length, which may not be<br>
> exactly correct.<br>
<br>
The copula is used to connect discantus passages with organum purum passages.<br>
During these connecting sections the duplum operates as in discantus sections<br>
whereas the tenor holds notes as in organum purum passages.<br>
<br>
Overall it can be said that a way to encode alignment is important in organum<br>
purum and copula passages. In discantus passages however this is not necessary<br>
as the modal rhythm used in all voices carries enough information; moreover the<br>
visual alignment usually does not even correspond to the musical alignment.<br>
<br>
-------------------------------<br>
<br>
<br>
What are your thoughts so far? I am looking forward to your feedback!<br>
<br>
Best<br>
Janek<br>
<br>
<br>
[1]: <a href="https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002268.html">https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002268.html</a> Joshua Stutter’s initial message<br>
[2]: <a href="https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002272.html">https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002272.html</a> Karen Desmond in response to Joshua<br>
[3]: <a href="https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002280.html">https://lists.uni-paderborn.de/pipermail/mei-l/2019/002280.html</a> Joshua in response to Karen<br>
<br>
<br>
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