The NEUMES Project

Transcription Primer

5. Appendices

5.1. Additional Comments

The Purpose of Metadata

To the greatest degree practically feasible, whatever interpretation the transcriber adds (including the identification of neume types, the labelling of pitch letters and other melodic details, but also comments about rubrics, illuminations, changes of hand, damage to the writing surface, etc.) is considered as metadata ("data describing the data") in relation to the prima facie text.

• from the NEUMES website, select Transcriptions/Tests in the left-hand column
• click on the siglum of the resource transcription
• scroll down to the bottom of the transcription and click on "Show source code"
• copy and paste the source code from the resource transcription into your text editor (and delete line numbers so only the XML code is remaining)

Reference Files - Recommended

Reference Files - Optional

Programming Notes

• NOTE: The use of "&STA" and "&END" (i.e., start and end) show good form in the programming of NeumesXML and, though they appear to be a duplication of the "on" and "off" tags surrounding the data, they clarify the beginnings and endings of items in both languages (XML and NeumesXML) and should be included until further notice in each line with multiple entities.
• Keep in mind the following distinction: the entity "ton_[ ]" represents a pitch on a staff, whereas "let_[ ]" is reserved for pitch letters which are written within the neumated passage (whether in isolation or in a sequence).
• If there is more than one neume associated with any particular textual syllable, enter the data for each neume in separate "<neume>&STA; ... &END;</neume>" statements. Indent each statement underneath the "<neumed_syllable><syllable> ... </syllable>" tags to clarify the appearance of the XML code, and place the ending tag "</neumed_syllable> after the last "<neume>" statement.