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Conference Proposals
Allyn Waller, Toni Armstrong, Julia Spiegel, Nicolas Guarracino, Hannah Nyugen, Marika Fox
This project proposes a solution to encoding the oldest Western musical notation, neumes, along with the corresponding text in two aligned documents.
Neumes are marks denoting relative changes in pitch. Each syllable of the Latin chant text has one or more associated neumes. Neumes predate modern staff notation and are written above the text without formal arrangement beyond left-to-right organization. While the Latin text is easily encoded with a standard keyboard, neume characters require more than what a standard keyboard can provide. In the St.Gall neume system, there are 18 basic neumes. Each type of neume can have an episema, which lengthens the length of the note, or can be liquescent, which denotes a performative difference similar to vibrato. Therefore, each basic neume can have four different forms, bringing the total to 72 graphic symbols. In addition, there are musical directions much like modern music, including dynamics, tempo, etc. These are written in the text with 15 significative letters which stand for Latin directions such as “tenere” to indicate holding a note longer or “equaliter” to indicate that two notes are not the same. In total, there are 87 possible graphical symbols to encode, many of which are variants of each other. There are approximately a dozen other systems for writing neumes, each of which has its own set of graphical symbols to represent the same neumes, much like transliterating words into different alphabets.
Up until now, neumes have only been recorded sparingly. This is because the main method of recording neumes is recreation of the graphical symbols. In the modern Graduale Triplex, published by the Roman Catholic Church, the modern staffed notation is accompanied by two lines of neumes, one in the St. Gall system and one in the Messine system. Modern chant scholars typically work with photographs or facsimiles of manuscripts to study neumes.
We have created a system to encode neumes in a way that is flexible, extensible, and universal. Called the Virgapes system after two neumes, the virga and the pes, our system is based on a four-part encoding scheme. We also include a set of standards for encoding neumes, building off of the URN system developed by the Homer Multitext Group to align parallel neume and text documents.
In the Virgapes each neume is represented by a four-part numerical code. The first a number is the number of pitches a neume contains. This can be 1, 2, 3, or 4 to represent groups of neumes, or 0 to represent the significative letters, since they do not actually signify any pitches. The second number is an arbitrarily assigned identifier within that group. This allows the system to be flexible and expand to encompass all known forms of neumes while still allowing for any possible new discoveries. The ID numbers begin at 1 and ascend as high as necessary. (Currently, the maximum is 15 to represent all the significative letters.) The third number indicates the presence of an episema. This is a binary variable, with 1 representing the addition of an episema and 0 representing a neume without an episema. The last number indicates whether the neume is liquescent. This is another binary variable, much like the third part of the encoding.
For example, a virga is a one-pitch neume, encoded as 1.1.0.0 in the absence of an episema or liquescence. A pes is a neume of two ascending pitches, encoded (if liquescent) as 2.1.0.1.
In addition to developing a system for digitally encoding neumes, we have also established how to align transcriptions of neumes with transcriptions of their texts. In the manuscripts, this is done graphically. In a digital edition, however, it would be cumbersome to alternate text and neumes constantly.
Instead, we have created two parallel documents. The text document and neume document are alignable thanks to the URN system which uniquely identifies each passage of text within the manuscript. The URN system was developed by the Homer Multitext Project in 2010-17, and applied to this project.
The two documents share a work hierarchy: group:notional work:version. The group is “mass” for texts of the Catholic Mass (as opposed to the chants of the daily Office performed by Catholic monasteries). The notional work refers to the feast day (i.e., “Christmas_Day”). The version refers to the specific manuscript; in our case, Einsiedeln 121. As the oldest surviving Mass antiphonary with neumes, Einsiedeln 121 is an ideal case study to apply this project’s two-part solution for the encoding of neumes.
The second portion of the URN system is a passage hierarchy, which subdivides the work identified in the work hierarchy. (A parallel would be act, scene, line divisions in plays.) Christmas Day, for example, would have a title, introit, etc., each identified separately. Within these can be subdivisions, which are identified by number, as in verse_1 or verse_2. Since chant does not have meter or stanzas, that is the most specific passage possible.
In order to break down these passages into syllables for alignment, we treat the two documents differently. Within the neume document, we separate neumes within a syllable with hyphens and neumes between syllables with whitespace. In the text document, we enter the Latin text with standard word breaks and use a computer program to automatically parse the words into syllables. These syllables can then be aligned by a computer program to display neumes alongside the corresponding text.
Digital encoding of neumes allows for many advances in research. It is possible to search for any neume with or without episema or liquescence, and also to search for these modifications on their own. It is also possible to compare the neumes of a verse of Christmas Day in Einsiedeln 121 to other manuscripts, like Brussels 10127, a comparable antiphonary. Finally, this encoding system makes it possible to search for a repeating pattern of neumes connected to a specific phrase, such as “alleluia,” in the text.
Neel Smith, Allyn Waller, Nick Guarracino, Julia Spiegel (all College of the Holy Cross), Toni Armstrong (Clark University)
In this paper, we present a new system for digitally encoding manuscripts with chant notated in neumes. We show how we can use these editions to search for patterns such as the longest group of neumes which repeat, or the longest melisma, or to explore correlations between neume patterns and the vowels of the corresponding text.
We begin by aligning parallel diplomatic transcriptions of text and musical notation; both transcriptions are indexed to manuscript pages and to visual evidence using canonical identifiers. This cleanly separated design makes systematic querying of the transcribed neumes possible. It also supports interactive browsing of automatically created views juxtaposing facsimiles with transcriptions. By standardizing our representation of neumes, we can compare patterns across manuscripts.
The key to digital search and manipulation of the editions is an "alphabet" for encoding neumes, which we call "Virgapes," named for two one-note neumes, virga and pes. Each distinct neume is encoded with a unique four-part code indicating: 1. the number of pitches in the neume; 2. a unique identifier within the group of neumes with the same number of pitches (distinguishing a virga from a pes, for example); 3. the presence and location of an episma, and 4. the presence of liquescence. This encoding system can be uniformly applied across manuscripts varying in style, hand, or the set of neumes used, and can easily be extended. In the course of our work, we have defined encodings for the St. Gall neumes used in Einsiedeln codex 121: the same principles can be applied to incorporate other neumes not appearing there.
Our talk will illustrate querying of digital editions of neumes, including embedding of illustrations automatically generated from the high-quality public-domain photography of the e-codices project.
The documentation of the Virgapes system and our work to date are freely available on github.
In this project, we present a new system for digitally encoding Medieval manuscripts with chant marked with neumatic musical notation. We show how we can use these editions to search for patterns such as the longest group of neumes which repeat, or the longest melisma, or to explore correlations between neume patterns and the vowels of the corresponding text.
We begin by aligning parallel transcriptions of text and musical notation; both transcripts are indexed to manuscript pages and to visual evidence using standard identifiers. This design makes systematic querying of the transcribed neumes possible. It also supports interactive browsing of automatically created views juxtaposing facsimiles with transcriptions. This standard allows us to compare patterns across manuscripts.
The key to digital search and manipulation of the editions is an "alphabet" for encoding neumes, which we call "Virgapes," named for two one-note neumes, virga and pes. Each distinct neume is encoded with a unique four-part code indicating the number of pitches, and the presence of episma and liquescence. This encoding system can be uniformly applied across manuscripts varying in style, hand, or the set of neumes used, and can be extended. In the course of our work, we have defined encodings for St. Gall style neumes used in Einsiedeln codex 121: the same principles can be applied to other neumes in other manuscripts.
Our poster will illustrate querying of digital editions of neumes, including embedding of illustrations automatically generated from the high-quality public-domain photography of the e-codices project.
The "Virgapes" system is groundbreaking in digitizing manuscripts; no other extant system has the flexibility, search and retrieval ability, and standardization*** of this system.
The notes above this heading make a nice 1-page abstract. The notes below are in case we want to keep them for developing this or other presentations.
Approach to the problem
Significance
Things to include:
- Flexible, expandable “virgapes”
- Digital - Separates content from physical item
- Searchable
- “Find the longest melisma” or “Find longest segment of neumes which repeats”
- Retrieval
- Find neumes for St. Christopher’s feast day
- Open-Access
- Anyone can use this to conduct research
- Reproducible
Includes:
- Paleography
- Standards
- General
- Read left-to-right, then add significative letters above before neume, significative letters located below neume transcribed after neume (cf Perseus Greek)
- For adding new notations
- Accounts for:
- Different styles of neumes (not just St. Gall)
- Episema
- Liquescence
- Significative/Romanian letters
UNIQUE MATERIAL & UNIQUE RESULTS First time designed a system Oldest extant examples