NEumed Unicode™ Manuscript Encoding Standard

Friday, January 24

Saturday, January 25

• Welcome and Introductions (Kelly)
  
• Progress report (Barton)
  
  
  1. Orientation: recapitulation of the Project overview as presented at the WEB Delivering of Music conference (Darmstadt, 2002).
  2. Delays: brief account of difficulties that put us behind schedule.
  3. Architecture: update on the NEUMES data representation and the NeumesXML language -- use of '&' and ';' instead of "[...]" to denote NEUMES characters; the NeumesXML.PEN and DTD files; negative results from our study of compatibility with the Digital Scriptorium DTD.
  4. Transcriptions: presentation of transcriptions done by Jacqueline Elemans.
  5. Virtual Library: major progress with our "distributed database" concept; platform-independent "first-class objects" on the Web; hyperlinking to CANTUS, source images, sound files; compatibility with search engines.
  6. High-Level Software: platform-independent beta visualization in HTML for checking transcriptions, and progress with our Java data-entry Applet.
• Discussion (Kelly)
  
  • What is it that scholars want, and what can we give them?
  • What are near-term possibilities for output?
  • Is it feasible to automatically translate Stinson's transcriptions to NEUMES?

• Where are we really on taxonomy, neume-forms, etc? (Kelly)



• Presentation of data-representation problems, and discussion (Barton)
• NEUMES codes: What do we mean by "pen movement"?

  ° At the first meeting I asked: Is what we mean by "pen movement" actually tonal movement or tonal direction? Tom said no.

  ° If we mean literally "pen movement," won't this cause us problems for melodic search and comparison? Pen movement is the only required "slot" in the data about a neume. Where we omit the (optional) glyph-form and pitch data, is it still possible to compare melodies?

  ° Perhaps it is only with fully diastematic notation that one can always derive melody from pen movement.

  ° We use &EQ; (equal) pen movement in both the context of approximate intervals and definite intervals: does &up_little;&EQ; relate two adjacent tones as strongly as &up_m3;&EQ; ?

  ° On parchments where insertions were made (or insufficient space was left by the text copyist for the neumes), what is the significance of pen movement where the baseline of writing is oblique or curved?



• NEUMES codes: Ink color

  ¶ preliminary specifications called for eight colors: black; blue; brown; purple; red; white; yellow; and no color (incised only)

  ¶ is this list okay, otherwise how should we handle the situation?



• NEUMES codes: Pitches

  ¶ pitched notation with no clef sign -- use solfège tones? (We have not way to indicate that is is unknown whether a B is flat or natural.)

  ¶ how should we encode letter pitches marked in sources

  ¶ special case: low B-flat, indicated by "B" in some manuscripts

  ¶ are there other special cases to consider?

  ¶ whether to leave NEUMES code space for quarter tones and, if so, what to call them (their mnemonics)



• NEUMES codes: Neumatic Glyphs

¶ Can bipunctum be transcribed as <neume>&Punctum;&Punctum;</neume>, or is there a reason we must say, <neume>&Bipunctum;</neume> ? (We din't make a Bipunctum Neume Form at Meeting #1.)

¶ Stropha: In Meeting #1 we made an Astract Neume Form for 'Apostropha'. For the tristropha, we can transcribe it variously as
<neume>&Apostropha;&tone_1;&Apostropha;&tone_2;
   &Apostropha;&tone_3;</neume>
or as,
<neume>&Apostropha;&tone_1;&tone_2;&tone_3;</neume>.
The first would display as three 'commas'. A sophisticated visualization program might (knowing the notational species) display the second as a stylized tristropha glyph.


vs.

Are there any problems about this encoding strategy?

¶ To what extent do we want to give names to neume forms with multiple following puncta?

¶ Can we reconcile our Abstract Neume Forms list with the Oxford Chant Group's taxonomy?



• NEUMES codes: Transcription problems from Jacqueline Elemans
1. ligatures in the text
   Examples: "terræ" in gradual Viderunt, "cæli" in offertory Tui sunt caeli
   Sources:
   

   Einsiedeln	Yriex	Sarum

   Possible solution: use the Unicode character æ ("Latin small ligature AE," Unicode value = 00E6)
   
   
   
2. neumatic groupings
   Example of basic group: gradual verse Dextera, syllable "me", from note 7
   Sources:
   

   Einsiedeln	Yriex	Sarum
   	(nn)

   Example of long group: gradual verse Dextera, syllable "Do"(mini fecit), from note 30
   Sources:
   

   Einsiedeln	Yriex	Sarum

   
   
3. liquescents
   Example: gradual Dextera, syllable "vir"(tutem)
   Sources:
   

   Einsiedeln	Yriex	Sarum

   
   
   
4. pen movement in conflict with pitch interval
   (this also shows a difference in grouping)
   Example: gradual Dextera, syllable "Do"(mini fecit), from note17
   Sources:
   

   Einsiedeln	Yrieix	Sarum




• NeumesXML

¶ help with encoding of differentia

¶ list of liturgical occasions: should we adopt or modify the codes used by CANTUS?

¶ how much information do we need to record about the obliquity of neumes written diagonally (either for lack of space or as an insertion).



• Organizing sample transcriptions (Kelly)

Sunday, January 26

• Round-table discussion (Kelly)
  
  • Phase Two procedures
  • In principle is it feasible to state rules about NEUMES data (albeit not necessarily to cover every case, and given that rules may conflict in particular cases) for such notions as: "a note that has some importance in the melodic structure"; "a cadential syllable"; "the accented syllable of a redundant cadence"; "mediant cadence"; and so on? [Cardine]
  • How can we develop means of melodic comparison?
  • What should front end look like?
  
  
• Closing remarks (Kelly)
  

Relevant information are to be found at the project website