[mei-neumes-ig] A draft for the new Neumes Module schema

Andrew Hankinson andrew.hankinson at mail.mcgill.ca
Thu May 25 11:15:10 CEST 2017 

Music and "lyrical content" (i.e., sung texts) are always encoded in relationship to each other in MEI; the question for chant is whether the syllable is the primary organizational object, and how we reconcile that with later repertoires that can have non-sung content.

In neume notation, we are organizing the music using:

syllable
    syl ("Je-"): Carries the actual text that is sung;
    neume(s)

while in mensural the 'syllable' disappears (since you can have instrumental mensural notation):

note
   syl ("Je-")

In both cases we encode the text with the music; the difference being a "philosophical" one about the primacy of the syllable as an organizational principle in the music. The 'syl' in neume notation is optional, but the 'syllable' isn't. This reflects the idea that there is always a sung text in neume notation, but we may not always know what that text is.

-Andrew


> On 24 May 2017, at 21:35, Jennifer Bain <Jennifer.Bain at Dal.Ca> wrote:
> 
> I like all of Thomas Weber’s suggestions below. I hope there was a fruitful discussion in Tours, and I would also love to see the minutes if they are available.
> 
> The syllable issue in relation to mensural modules is interesting. Is there a way to work around this? Having the syllable indicated is a huge step in being able to relate text and music computationally, so I wouldn’t want to lose that with the chant notation, but it is completely inappropriate in a mensural context.
> 
> Thanks everyone for your work on this! 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Jennifer
> 
> 
> 
> Jennifer Bain, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Fountain School of Performing Arts
> 
> bainj at dal.ca
> 
> Dalhousie University
> 6101 University Avenue
> Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada 
> 
> Check out this Hildegard bibliography: http://hildegard.music.dal.ca/index.php
> 
> Recent book: Hildegard of Bingen and Musical Reception: the Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer (Cambridge, 2015) 
> 
> From: mei-neumes-ig <mei-neumes-ig-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de> on behalf of Thomas Weber <thomas.weber at notengrafik.com>
> Reply-To: Neumes Interest Group of the Music Encoding Initiative <mei-neumes-ig at lists.uni-paderborn.de>
> Date: Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 11:31
> To: Neumes Interest Group of the Music Encoding Initiative <mei-neumes-ig at lists.uni-paderborn.de>
> Subject: Re: [mei-neumes-ig] A draft for the new Neumes Module schema
> 
> Dear list,
> 
> because Elaine and me aren't in Tours, we looked through the draft together and would like to give our input for the upcoming meeting.  From the perspective of Corpus monodicum, this definitely is heading in the right direction.  There are some changes we'd suggest:
> 	• Quilisma/Oriscus: So far, we've only encoded whether something is or is not an oriscus or quilisma - i.e. no more detailed information about the shape.  The project won't change that, so we'd like to suggest to also offer a simple "true/false" option, like with @episima.  Mixing boolean and numbers is a little odd, but the alternative would be two separate attributes, which wouldn't be any handier.
> 	• We'd suggest a strophicus attribute.  Strophici could be handled using taxonomies, but they are so common that we think they deserve their own attribute, just like oriscus and quilisma.
> 	• We'd need <note> inside <nc> to encode pitch information for diastematic notation - or alternatively, @pname/@oct on <nc>. <note> is probably preferable.
> 	• Currently, you can put <accid> inside <syllable>.  I don't think this is the appropriate place to put an accidental.  We have two situations where we have to deal with accidentals:
> 		• Accidentals that are "attached to" a neume.  It would make most sense if they were child elements of that <neume> element.
> 		• Accidentals that are not attached to a neume, i.e. sort-of-but-not-quite key signatures.  To use the currently allowed <keySig> (inside <staffDef>) in these situations doesn't seem appropriate.  It would suggest that use and implications of these accidentals are identical to modern key signatures, which as far as I understand is not the case - or we lack that knowledge.  It would be useful to put them right between the <neume> elements - most of the time (but not always) immediately after a <sb>.
> 	• We need to encode rubrics and would introduce a <rubric> element inside <layer>, ideally with a @type attribute that might be an open list with suggested values feast (e.g. for a rubric "De Sancto Stephano"), service (e.g. for a rubric "Ad summam missam") and genre (e.g. for a rubric "Alleluia").
> During the last meeting in Tübingen, the <syllable> element was challenged.  I think one motivation was to make the hierarchy of the neumes and mensural modules more compatible for projects that have to deal with both.  We can't say a lot about that, though.
> 
> To everybody in Tours:  Have a great un-conference day!
> Thomas
> 
> 
> Am 11.05.2017 um 09:26 schrieb Ichiro Fujinaga, Prof.:
>> Dear List,
>> 
>> Perry Roland has kindly worked on a new version of the MEI Neumes Module schema.
>> This was based on my suggestions, which were based on the discussions at the last MEI Neumes Interest Group (19 November 2016, Tübingen) and at various Cantus Ultimus meetings. 
>> 
>> I hope this will be a staring point for fruitful discussions on this list and at the upcoming Neumes Interest Group meeting in Tours on Friday 19 May.
>> 
>> Attached are an ODD file with Perry’s comments at the bottom; an RNG file; and a test MEI file. All provided by Perry.
>> Below is what I provided to Perry.
>> 
>> ================================
>> 
>> A <neume> element consists of one or more <neumeComponent> element(s).
>> 
>> A <neumeComponent> is a single pitched event, although the exact pitch may not be known.
>> 
>> Attributes for <neume>
>> @direction (relative to the previous <neume>) {N|S|L|H|SH|SL}
>>    N: neutral or unknown
>>    H: higher
>>    L: lower
>>    S: same 
>>    SH: same or higher (but not lower)
>>    SL: same or lower (but not higher)
>> @significative letters
>> @hispanicLoop (not sure about this)
>> 
>> Attributes for <neumeComponent>
>> @direction: pitch relative to the previous pitch (<neumeComponent>) within the same <neume> {N|S|L|H|SH|SL}
>>    N: neutral or unknown
>>    H: higher
>>    L: lower
>>    S: same or unison
>>    SH: same or higher (but not lower)
>>    SL: same or lower (but not higher)
>> @wavy
>> @curved (anticlockwise, clockwise)
>> @angled
>> @episma
>> @flat
>> @jagged
>> @liquescence
>> @extended
>> @diagonal right (up or down)
>> @quilisma (2 or 3 curves)
>> @long
>> @oriscus (curved, flat, jagged)
>> @connection (gapped, looped) (to the previous neumeComponent within the same <neume>)
>> 
>> ================================
>> 
>> Ichiro
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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