[MEI-L] AMS "Introduction to MEI" Workshop

[Roland, Perry (pdr4h)]

Dear MEIers,

This is a gentle reminder about the pre-conference workshop in conjunction with the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory joint meeting in New Orleans.  Please forgive any cross-posting, but we want to get the word out to a broad range of potential participants.

This announcement has already been (or will soon be) posted to TEI-L and DH lists.  However, please distribute this to other lists, such as national and local discussion lists concerned with music and digital humanities, and other interested individuals.

Thanks for getting the word out,

--
p.


__________________________
Perry Roland
Music Library
University of Virginia
P. O. Box 400175
Charlottesville, VA 22904
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu



AMS "Introduction to MEI" Workshop

The University of Virginia Library, the University of Paderborn, and the Music Encoding Initiative Council
are pleased to offer an opportunity to learn about the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), an increasingly
important tool for digital humanities music research, in conjunction with the joint meeting of the American
Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Society for Music Theory in New Orleans,
scheduled for 1-4 November.

"Introduction to MEI," an intensive, hands-on workshop, will be offered Wednesday, 31 October from 9:00
a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Experts from the Music Encoding Initiative Council will teach the workshop, during which
participants will learn about MEI history and design principles, tools for creating, editing, and rendering
MEI, and techniques for customizing the MEI schema. The day will include lectures, hands-on practice, and
opportunities to address participant-specific issues.

There are no fees associated with this workshop and no previous experience with MEI or XML is required;
however, an understanding of music notation and other markup schemes, such as HTML and TEI, will be
helpful. Participants are encouraged to bring laptop computers for hands-on exercises. The number of
participants is limited to 25.

To register, visit the AMS special events page at http://www.ams-net.org/neworleans/special_events.php.

Please address questions to info at music-encoding.org.

Workshop Schedule

Session 1 (9:00-10:00): What is music encoding?
This session introduces the basic need for and techniques of music encoding using XML.
• What is markup? What is its function?  Why is it important?
• Basic concepts of XML: elements, attributes, document structure, and schemas
• What is the role of standards such as MEI?  Why do we need markup languages?

Session 2 (10:15-12:00): What is MEI?
The following issues will be addressed during this session:
• MEI's situation within the landscape of digital humanities scholarship: What are its intellectual affiliations and commitments?
• How does MEI support the creation of digital musical texts? What is its role in defining how music documents should be represented?
• How is MEI currently used, and how is it evolving?
• What are the alternatives to MEI? What are the advantages and risks of using a detailed encoding system like MEI?

Session 3 (1:30-3:00): Basics of Encoding with MEI
This session will describe basic MEI elements and describe their use, using detailed musical examples.

Session 4 (3:15-4:30): MEI Application Tutorials
This session introduces MEI-specific encoding tools, such as, MerMEId, MEISE, and the Edirom Editor.  Participants will learn how these tools can be used to design workflows for entering, editing, and rendering MEI.

Session 5 (4:45-5:30): Wrap-up Discussion
Participants will reflect on MEI markup and tools and how they can be employed in the participants’ current and future projects.  In addition, opportunities for participation in the MEI community will be covered.