[MEI-L] Encoding Square Notation

[Prof. Dr. Morent]

Hi Andrew,

a few remarks on the issues you raised concerning 19th century  
Solesmes square notation:

As you rightly remarked earlier most of the "additional" signs found  
in the Liber Usualis or other Solesmes books (including vertical and  
horizontal strokes) are so called "private" additions of the Abbey of  
Solesmes to the canonical musical text for Gregorian chant issued as  
the so called "Vaticana" (which is still the official musical text for  
the Roman church, although at many places improvable).
These so called episemata (which ist the pl.) and the "ictus" have to  
do with a special rhtyhmic theorie for performing Gregorian chant  
developed at Solesmes at the end of the 19th century.

Today scholars mostly disagree with these theories (and so does today  
Solesmes) and any fixed rhythmic theory since they don't have a  
foundation in the earliest neumed manuscripts (although we of course  
still don't know today, how chant was performed exactly in the Middle  
Ages).

The same is true more or less for the divisiones, which should help  
the modern singer as a means for structuring the chant.

So encoding parts of the Liber Usualis means encoding a 19th century  
interpretation of Gregorian chant - which could be a valuable task in  
itself of course.

But we have to keep carefully in mind, that i.e. an episema is also a  
feature and a term used with the ealiest neume families (i.e. Saint  
Gall neumes).

We didn't include this feature yet in the MEI neumes module, since it  
came out of a project devoted to neumes of the 12th century written on  
lines.

But talking with Perry at the Detmold meeting the plan would be to  
include these features in the future.

In any case we should differentiate between an episema found in a 9th  
c. neumed source or one in a 19th c. Solesmes book.

My best
Stefan Morent




Zitat von "Andrew Hankinson, Mr" <andrew.hankinson at mail.mcgill.ca>:

> Thanks, Perry.
>
> RE: The Episemas
> Would it be possible to do both a full element and an attribute,  
> similar to the "dots" attribute on the note and the "<dot />"  
> element if more information is needed?
>
> For the attribute, I think "episemae" (pl?) are only attached to the  
> notes in a ligature - not to the note itself. I would propose an  
> "episema" attribute that can take the values "both", "horizontal" or  
> "vertical".
>
> For the element, we could define an "<episema>" element with a type  
> attribute with the values "horizontal" or "vertical". This could  
> then be extended later with xml:id attributes, etc.
>
> To use the "Sunday at Vespers" chant example, it might be encoded  
> something like this:
>
> <syllable>
>    <syl>DE_</syl>
>    <uneume xml:id="d1e1" name="punctum">
>       <note pname="c" oct="4"/>
>    </uneume>
> </syllable>
> <syllable>
>    <syl>us</syl>
>       <uneume xml:id="d2e1" name="punctum">
>          <note pname="c" oct="4" episema="both" />
>                  **OR**
>          <note pname="c" oct="4">
>             <episema type="horizontal" />
>             <episema type="vertical" />
>          </note>
>       </uneume>
> </syllable>
>
> RE: The Divisions
> Upon further reflection, I would be wary of "overloading" the  
> barline to function as a division. They look visually similar, but  
> function quite different - it may be like calling a "punctum" the  
> same as a "crochet" just because they are solid shapes! :) The  
> divisions act more like "musical punctuation," and in that way  
> operate more like a fermata or a rest than they do a barline.
>
> Would it be possible to add a <division> element to the neumes  
> module to explicitly encode them?
>
> Finally,
> I think doing extensions on the RelaxNG schema is an excellent idea.  
> I'm new to the MEI community, so I'm not sure of the best way to  
> proceed. I would suggest that we can add a "branch" in the  
> Subversion repository and make our proposed changes there, which can  
> then be reviewed and incorporated back into the "trunk" for the next  
> release. That will keep the mainline release versions and any  
> "experimental" versions separate.
>
> Otherwise, I'm very open to alternative suggestions.
>
> Cheers,
> -Andrew
>
>
> On 2010-06-16, at 1:47 PM, Roland, Perry (pdr4h) wrote:
>
>> Hi, Andrew,
>>
>> For the episema, I think it would be most appropriate to add an  
>> attribute to the ineume and uneume elements for episema (which are  
>> a species of articulation, no?) and an episema/artic subelement  
>> within ineume and uneme.  This is similar to how note articulations  
>> are handled in CMN -- the attribute supports simple, hand-entered  
>> data, while the element is mostly for those situations where one  
>> might want to record more specific info about the articulation  
>> symbol, as you probably do in OMR. :)
>>
>> One question might be, however, whether we want to draw attention  
>> to the fact that episema are a kind of articulation (and therefore  
>> use the name "artic" for the element and attribute) or use the  
>> terminology appropriate for the neume repertoire and add an  
>> "episema" element and attribute.
>>
>> "Bar lines" raise similar issues.  The <barline> element is already  
>> permitted within and between <syllable> elements, so one approach  
>> might be to just call these lines of division "barlines".  While  
>> they're not barlines in the modern sense, i.e., they don't mark off  
>> measures, they look like barlines and they function somewhat like  
>> barlines, i.e., they mark off something.  If this path is taken,  
>> the small division "barline" can use the taktplace attribute to  
>> mark the position of the line, the major division is a single  
>> barline, the final division is a double barline, but the minor  
>> division's visual rendition would need extra values in barrend or  
>> taktplace or perhaps some new attributes to describe them.  Adding  
>> new attributes might end up being best because they could in fact  
>> be applied to any barline.
>>
>> But .....
>>
>> Since we're about to announce the 2010-05 release of MEI, I don't  
>> think it's a good time to add new features.  Instead, I suggest  
>> that we think about temporary additions in the form of extensions  
>> to the relaxNG schema.  This would give us some "breathing room" to  
>> try out the extensions and add them to the official schema later.   
>> (This is how the neumes module was developed.)  After the NEH/DFG  
>> report is done at the end of July, I'd be happy to work with you on  
>> these extensions.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> --
>> p.
>>
>> __________________________
>> Perry Roland
>> Digital Curation Services
>> University of Virginia Library
>> P. O. Box 400155
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4155
>> 434-982-2702 (w)
>> pdr4h at virginia.edu
>> ________________________________________
>> From: mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de  
>> [mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] On Behalf Of Andrew  
>> Hankinson, Mr [andrew.hankinson at mail.mcgill.ca]
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 11:33 AM
>> To: Music Encoding Initiative
>> Subject: [MEI-L] Encoding Square Notation
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had a couple questions about how to encode some features of  
>> square note notation. See [1] (below) for an example from a chant  
>> in the Liber Usualis that shows some of the material we're working  
>> with.
>>
>> Is there a way to encode the horizontal and vertical episema in  
>> MEI? They're the lines on, e.g. the second neueme in the "Sunday at  
>> Vespers" chant that I've attached below.
>>
>> As far as I can tell, these are articulation marks added by the  
>> monks at Solemnes in the 19th C., so they're not strictly  
>> "traditional" square note notation. They serve to guide the  
>> rhythmic interpretation of the note. I've attached a couple PDF  
>> pages [2] from the introduction to the Liber that explain how they  
>> are to be interpreted.
>>
>> The second feature that we're looking at encoding are the  
>> divisiones - the "bar lines" of a type, featured in this chant.  
>> They're used, more or less, as breathing marks. Is there currently  
>> an accepted way to encode these? I've also attached a PDF [3] from  
>> the Liber with a few pages explaining how they are used and  
>> interpreted.
>>
>> Many thanks for any assistance,
>>
>> Andrew Hankinson
>>
>> [1] http://coltrane.music.mcgill.ca/square_notation/sunday_vespers.png
>> [2]  
>> http://coltrane.music.mcgill.ca/square_notation/episema_interpretation.pdf
>> [3]  
>> http://coltrane.music.mcgill.ca/square_notation/divisiones_interpretation.pdf
>>
>>
>>
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