NEUMES

NEumed Unicode™ Manuscript Encoding Standard

Preliminary Taxonomy of Neume Forms

Louis W. G. Barton and Ruth Ripley

University of Oxford

Revision: 1 October 2001

Taxonomic Principles

Abstract neumes, not glyphs

A key strategy of the NEUMES project is that transcriptions should enocde abstract neumes rather than glyphs. A glyph is a graphical rendering; it is closely related to the notion of a font for display or printing. An abstract neume is a classificational concept that results from our speculative reconstruction of the 'individuation scheme' that might have been in a scribe's minds when translating between aural image and written symbol.
Two layers of digital encoding
1. The low-level data representation, should capture the 'intensional' forms of neumes, viz., the abstractions of neume entities that we speculate scribes used to "individuate" aural phenomena into gestural entities. These neume forms we shall call abstract neumes. A test of membership in the set of abstract neumes shall be whether an item of transcription information is strictly needed for music-theoretic analysis. Abstract neumes shall be encoded in the 16-bit Unicode™ Standard, specifically in its Private Use Area, which was reserved by the Unicode™ Consortium for purposes such as this. The principal benefits of this strategy are (a) disambiguation, and (b) processing efficiency during 'random access' of data streams. We anticipate that an analysis program will typically need to do 'complex traversal' of data, whereas a visual redering program can process a data stream in strictly sequential order.
2. The high-level 'wrapper' encapsules the abstract neumes for transmission and data storage, and shall include all transcription information that is needed to suppport all the anticipated uses of the data, but shall exclude transcription information that is represented in the abstract neumes. For file-format compatibility with a broad variety of other types of data, the encapsulation layer shall be coded in XML (Extensible Markup Language), our particular scheme for doing so being called NeumeXML. XML uses tags (similar to HTML tags), which (worst case) must be read sequentially from the beginning of the file to disambiguate them. This is not a problem for visual rendering, because visual documents are typically coded so that they can be layed out from top to bottom and left-to-right. Processing efficiency is not a stated goal of XML. XML tags are typically ASCII characters (essentially, those found on a typewriter). Between the tags we can interpose neumed Unicode characters.
Abstruse data representation

code points

'Lossless' representation vs. ease-of-use

What constitutes a 'neume'?

Compound neumes

Various Questions

Q: Intervals for compound neumes: maximum interval is a 6th?

Q: In cases where the rendering of a compound neume depends on context, can all contextual information be derived from rules, or is it necessary to encode such contextual information in (second-order) NeumeXML?

Taxonomy of Neume Forms across Neume Families
Below is listed the set of neume forms I came up with. This list must be reconciled with the Oxford Chant Group table (bottom of this page). Next to some of these forms are questions in brackets [ ] that Tom and/or I had.

A. Number of forms, name of form, and comments:

4 virga and substitute-style virga [Problem: do we need a substitute style?]: both in plain and liquescent forms

4 punctum and substitute-style punctum [Problem: do we need a substitute style?]: both in plain and liquescent forms

50 pes (or podatus) at intervals of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: ending can be plain, with apostropha, with oriscus, with apostropha and oriscus, or with oriscus and apostropha: each plain or liquescent

50 clivis (or flexa): same variants as for pes

50 torculus (or pes flexus): same variants as for pes [Problem: mixed intervals]

50 porrectus (or flexa resupina): same variants as for pes [Problem: mixed intervals]

36 scandicus at intervals of 2, 3, 4, 5 for the first part: ending can be plain, with apostropha, with oriscus, with apostropha and oriscus, or with oriscus and apostropha: each plain or liquescent

6 climacus (virga followed by one to three puncta "normally," can be composed if more): plain forms (3) and liquescent forms (3)

2 tripunctum: plain and liquescent forms [Check fact: same as trigon?]

B. Auxiliary signs:

1 custos

C. Forms that could be composed using 'combining characters':

? quilisma (ends something else; first note is a special sign followed by a note higher; quilisma is always attached to something else).
? salicus [Problem (ask other musicologists): can be composed? intervals? liquescent?]
? pressus [Problem: needed but must discuss later: composed? intervals? liquescent?]
? tractulus (like pes at interval of 2nd up, or unison, or liquescent) [can be composed? intervals? liquescent?]

Forms in blue are those that need to be reconciled with the Oxford taxonomy.

bi-virga
bi-punctum
torculus resupinus flexus
porrectus flexus
scandicus flexus
climacus resupinus
porrectus subpunctis
pes subpunctis
pes praepunctis
virga prae-bipunctis
torculus praepunctis
porrectus praepunctis
apostropha
oriscus
clivis (or strophica) (can be composed) [intervals?] [liquescent?]
torculus (or pes flexus strophicus) (can be composed) [intervals?] [liquescent?]
dis- or tristropha praepunctis (can be composed) [intervals?] [liquescent?]
pes stratus (can be composed) [intervals?] [liquescent?]

Oxford Chant Group

Data Representation and Taxonomy

The table, below, shows the neume taxonomy currently in use by the Oxford Chant Group (OCG), as provided by Dr. Ruth Ripley. This taxonomy was designed especially for a database of unheighted neume transcriptions.

Two salient principles of the OCG data representation scheme are that:

it is text-based, viz., a second-order data representation (see Barton, "Computer Encoding of Neumed Manuscripts");

it is strongly tied to a set of glyph images (see definition of "glyph," above).

An OCG transcription file consists of many lines of ASCII text delimited by the newline character. A single neume descriptor consists of a 'group' of (one or more) lines in series. These groups are arrayed in the file in the 'natural' order of reading from the source document, as follows.

The first line of a file gives a count of the number of neume types used in the transcription.
The remainder of the file is a series of neumes, viz., a series of 'groups' consisting of one or more lines each.
Logically, the neumes are in a hierarchical arrangement starting with verses, then phrases, and lastly syllables.

§ Composition of a 'group'

In the following discussion, I have marked with an asterisk (*) the items that appear in the table, below, which you can use for reference.

A 'group' consists of a primary line, followed by (zero or more) 'detail' lines. The primary line has the following scheme:

the name of the neume in ASCII, delimited by double quotes; *
the number of 'detail' lines in this 'group';
the number of 'notes' in the neume; *
a sequence of numbers which connect the neume to the corresponding glyph, i.e., the font character (these numbers are lexically ordered beginning with the liquescent version of the neume, then that for a quilisma with the neume, that for basic neume, and those for 'c', 't', epistema, and 'long' versions of the neume);

Following the primary line come the 'detail' lines. One 'detail' line has the following scheme:

a Latin chant syllable; and
a position indicator relative to the previous 'note'. *

The last line of a 'group' contains the 'relative position string' for the notes in this neume. *

§ Explanation of certain (second-order) codes

'Note' length options:

"c" means the note is short;
"t", "epi", or "long" mean the note is long;
blank means the note is of 'normal' length;
free-text can be entered for 'other length'.

'Note' position options:

"a" or "+" mean relative position is up a little;
"x" means note is long;
"e", "eq", or "=" mean relative position is equal;
"i", "io", "iu", or "-" mean relative position is down a little;
"s" means relative position is up a little;
"iv" or "--" mean relative position is down a lot;
"++" means relative position is up a lot;
"m" means, if relative position is + then it is made .5+, otherwise it is made .5-;
free-text can be entered for 'other interval'.

§ Default values

In the OCG data-entry program, 'default' values are entered automatically if one does not specify a value. The note defaults depend on the type of neume and (sometimes) on the previous neume. Defaults currently are as follows.

If the new neume is a virga, virga strata, climacus, climacus resupinus or pressus major, then if the previous neume was a punctum, tractulus or gravis or the previous interval was down (-, --, or .5-), then the first relative position is set to +.
If the new neume is a punctum, tractulus, gravis, scandicus, scandicus flexus, scandicus flexus resupinus, pes cumbipunctis, virga cumbipunctis or virga praebipunctis subtripunctis then if the previous neume was a virga or the previous interval was up (+, ++, or .5+), then the first relative position is set to -.
Otherwise the relative positions are taken from the table, below.

§ Taxonomy (OCG)

Neume name	Number of notes	Relative positions string	Detail number	Detail text	Detail action

apostropha	1	?
climacus	3	? - -	1	c1	make first note short
			2	t1	make first note long
			3	ep1	make first note long
			4	l3	make third note long
			5	l23	make second and third notes long
			6	big	leave notes unchanged (simply records the shape of the neume)
climacus resupinus	4	? - - +	1	c1	make first note short
			2	t1	make first note long
			3	ep1	make first note long
			4	l3	make third note long
			5	l23	make second and third notes long
			6	big	leave notes unchanged (simply records the shape of the neume)
clivis	2	? -	1	t+ep	make both notes long
			2	ep2v	make second note long
			3	ep2h	make second note long
clivis + pressus minor	4	? - ? -	1	t+ep	make first two notes long
			2	ep2v	make second note long
			3	ep2h	make second note long
gravis	1	-
oriscus	1	?
pes	2	? +	1	t2	make second note long
			2	ep2	make second note long
			3	diag	make both notes long
pes combipunctis	6	? + + + - -
pes quassus	2	? +
pes stratus	3	? + =
pes subbipunctis	4	? + - -	1	c12	make first two notes short
			2	t2	make second note long
			3	t12	make first two notes long
			4	l12	make first two notes long
			5	l2	make second note long
			6	diag	make first two notes long
porrectus	3	? - +	1	ep3	make third note long
porrectus flexus	4	? - + -	1	ep34	make third and fourth notes long
			2	l34	make third and fourth notes long
			3	clong	make all four notes short
porrectus subbipunctis	5	? - + - -
pressus maior	3	? = -	1	c2	make second note short
			2	t2	make second note long
pressus minor	2	? -	1	joined	no change to notes
punctum	1	?
quilisma	1	+
salicus	3	? + +
scandicus	3	? + +	1	epx3	make all three notes long
			2	l12ep3	make all three notes long
scandicus flexus	4	? + + -	1	c34	make third and fourth notes short
			2	t34	make third and fourth notes long
			3	ep34	make third and fourth notes long
			4	ept34	make third and fourth notes long
			5	ep4v	make fourth note long
			6	ep4h	make fourth note long
scandicus flexus resupinus	5	? + + - +	1	ep5	make fifth note long
torculus	3	? + -	1	3down	no change
			2	ep23noc1	make first note short and second and third long
			3	c1ep23	make first note short and second and third notes long
			4	t23noc1	make first note short and second and third notes long
			5	c1t23	make first note short and second and third notes long
			6	c1t23ep23	make first note short and second and third notes long
			7	t23ep23noc1	make first note short and second and third note long
			8	l3	make third note long
			9	ep3v	make third note long
			10	ep3h	make third note long
			11	stretched	make first note short and second and third notes long
torculus resupinus	4	? + - +	1	t234noc1	make first note short and second, third and fourth notes long
			2	ep234noc1	make first note short and second, third and fourth notes long
			3	l234noc1	make first note short and second, third and fourth notes long
			4	ep4	make fourth note long
torculus resupinus flexus	5	? + - + -
tractulus	1	?
trigon	3	? + -
virga	1	?
virga cumbipunctis	5	? + + - -
virga praebipunctis subtripunctis	6	? + + - - -
virga strata	2	? =	1	c2	make second note short
			2	t2	make second note long
other	1	?