[MEI-L] Encoding Square Notation

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

Andrew,

I think we need to clear up some confusion over notes versus neumes.  As I said before, so far note elements have been allowed within ineume and uneume only in order to facilitate transcription into modern notation, not to indicate any written feature in the neume notation.  Therefore, one must view the note elements here as "borrowed" from modern notation.  Since they're a way of inserting modern notation into neumed notation, allowing them to have any of the attributes of neumed notation or making them the targets of plist as in your example below is not advisable.

> ...
> <uneume xml:id="d1g1">
>  <note xml:id="d1n1" .../>
>  <note xml:id="d1n2" .../>
>  <note xml:id="d1n3" .../>
> </uneume>
> <episema value="horizontal" plist="d1n1 d1n2" /> // horizontal episema over two notes in the ligature
>   *** OR:***
> <episema value="horizontal" plist="d1n1" /> //horizontal episema over the whole ligature
> <episema value="vertical" plist="d1n3" /> // vertical episema on just the third note.
> ...

"Uneume" and "ligature" are not equivalent terms.  A uneume is not a "note group", that is, an arbitrary collection of notes.  Neither is it a ligature as defined by MEI.  Instead, it is a sign written with one stroke of the pen.  I think  --

<ineume xml:id="d1n1" .../>
<ineume xml:id="d1n2" .../>
<ineume xml:id="d1n3" .../>
<episema value="horizontal" startid="d1n1" endid="d1n2" /> // horizontal episema over two neumes in the ligature
  *** OR:***
<episema value="horizontal" startid="d1n1" /> //horizontal episema over the whole ligature
<episema value="vertical" startid="d1n3" /> // vertical episema on just the third neume.

may be closer to what you want.  (Note the changes in your comments to reflect the change in terminology.)

To answer your question, a startid without an endid is contextually defined.  In most cases, it means the starting point and the ending point are one and the same.

Looking at this new repertoire, however, I'm thinking a revision of the definition of ligature as an arbitrary collection of notes (I assume "g1" in the ligature's ID indicates "group 1")  would allow you to wrap neumes --

<ligature xml:id="d1g1">
  <ineume xml:id="d1n1" .../>
  <ineume xml:id="d1n2" .../>
  <ineume xml:id="d1n3" .../>
</ligature>

However, this means that we'd have to move the ligature element from the mensural to the shared module.  Effectively, this would make the ligature element available in all repertoires.  This may cause some problems with ligatures as they're understood in modern notation, but perhaps I'm getting too far off the immediate path.

As it currently stands, the MEI neumes module was designed to handle pitch-less neumes.  Basically, the name attribute functions as an alternative to pname and oct attributes on notes.  Since you're dealing with pitched neumes, it's probably a good idea to add these attributes to i/uneumes for your new module.  This will help clear up some of the confusion over the use of note elements.

By the way, I think that note elements within i/uneume should be deprecated in favor of using an app/rdg structure.  This would resolve the note use confusion once and for all by encouraging the user to put the neume notation in one rdg and the modern transcription in another.

It wasn't clear from the initial material you provided that episema functioned in quite the way you describe in the comments above.  Now that I see this explanation, I think you're right to suggest that episemata be handled as what I call "control events" -- those that rely on basic events for their existence.  A phrase mark, for instance, is a control event.  It must start and end on a note (a so-called phrase mark that isn't attached to notes is not a phrase mark by this definition) and it does so by referencing those notes' IDs (among other methods).  Yes, startid and endid are preferable to plist, which provides a method of marking *all* the participants in a control event, not just the start and end points.  For example, a phrase element encompassing 10 notes will have its startid set to "n1", its endid to "n10" and its plist attribute (if present) to "n1 n2 n3 ... n10".

Making the episema a control event would accommodate the sanctus example.  In fact, it would allow an episema to be placed over any single neume or combination of neumes and even allow overlapping episemata.

I prefer the attribute name "value" (or another similarly neutral moniker) as an indication of the logical/visual semantics of the episema over "name" for reasons similar to those I gave for my handling of the attribute "type" --

a) xml:id "names" an individual element with a unique (at least within the current document) label, while
b) the n attribute (n for "name or number") "names" the attribute with a potentially non-unique label.

In this case, we're not looking to label the element, but rather to pass along information about the value/function of the episema.  Admittedly, I have not been completely consistent throughout MEI with this, having succumbed to the temptation to use a name attribute on i/uneume elements, but I reserve the right to be inconsistent.  Sometimes.  :)

The values "horizontal" and "vertical" are fine if you never anticipate using the Solesmes module along with some other module that defines "horizontal" and "vertical" differently.  I just can't say at this point whether this matters now or not.  Perhaps we can't know until we attempt a merging of the Solesmes module with other modules.

--
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: Monday, June 21, 2010 11:54 AM
To: Music Encoding Initiative
Subject: Re: [MEI-L] Encoding Square Notation

Hi Perry,

I'll answer inline below to address some of your questions:

On 2010-06-17, at 6:32 PM, Roland, Perry (pdr4h) wrote:

> Andrew,
>
> Let me do a little house cleaning in the McGill repo first.  I'm waiting on the results of a little poll of the other members of the technical team, but I should have this done by early next week.  Then we'll talk about where to put the new stuff.
>
> Yes, RNG and XSD are the targets right now.  We hope that by early next year, the target will switch to ODD, but you don't need to worry about that now.
>
> My modus operandi has been to work in RNG (because I find it easier to comprehend) and then use Trang from inside oXygen to convert to XSD.  Periodic testing of this conversion is a good idea as there are some things that can't be automagically translated.  But if the conversion doesn't work, then it's a clue that you're being too RNG-centric and you should find another way of writing the schema.
>
> I think a good starting point would be to modify the neumes module and then the mei-all driver file to include your modified neumes module instead of the original one.  We can take up the possibility of using the current neumes module plus a solesmes module later.

That all sounds good to me. I think a separate Solemnes module is probably the best way to go, given the differences between the variations of neume notation. If we do see some crossover later, we can merge it into a "neumes common" module.

> Regarding episemata:
>
> Rather than using the values "horizontal", "vertical", "both" --
>
>>> <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>
>
> I think it would be easier to mesh with any meaning(s) in other repertoires later, if you chose values based on what's being indicated rather than the visual symbol.  For instance --
>
> <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" episema="compoundbeatbeginningandslightlengthening">
>    <!-- OR elements instead of the attribute:
>    <episema value="slightlengthening" />
>    <episema value="compoundbeatbeginning" /> -->
>    <note pname="c" oct="4"/>
>  </uneume>
> </syllable>
>
> Of course, these particular values are absurd, but you get the point.  A more appropriate value for "compoundbeatbeginning" is "ictus" (if I read the Harvard Dictionary correctly), but I'm less sure about the other ones.  I hope Stefan will suggest values for the others.  Stefan?