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Anna Kijas edited this page Feb 9, 2023 · 13 revisions

Intro

Music data is a symbolic representation of a music document that is machine-readable. It can be parsed and analyzed using a computer or software to enable the study of music, create critical-editions, searchable databases, publish online, and more. There are different formats and schemas for expressing and rendering music data. The main output of this work will consist of music data in MusicXML format, which can be transformed into other formats, including MEI.

Note: Training will be provided for all students involved in this project. Ability to read music notation is necessary.

Goal of this project

Create musical incipits (initial melodic line of a composition or each movement) that can be used as a thematic index for locating compositions in the Lilly Music Library. This will be useful for compositions that are published within collected works or series. The focus will be on music scores that are part of the library collection and focus on underrepresented and/or marginalized composers.

The data created can later be rendered in HTML as a search tool for our patrons. It may be possible to display this in our LMS within the item record. An example might look like this:

Screen Shot 2023-02-09 at 4 15 04 PM

Fig. 1 Ferdinand Ries, Preludes in A minor, https://opac.rism.info/search?id=464123069&View=rism

Roles & Tasks

There are several different roles and tasks that you can work on, including:

  • Transcription
  • Review
  • Metadata and music encoding
  • Content Pages

Transcription

This involves transcribing the introductory musical phrase or incipit of a piece in MuseScore software.

  • To become more familiar or learn how to use a particular function in MuseScore, go to these tutorials or ask for help.

Review

Each transcription will be reviewed by someone other than the original transcriber for quality control. You will use Musescore to open the file and make any necessary corrections.

Metadata and music encoding

After the incipit file is reviewed it will be exported to MusicXML and transformed into MEI XML. The MEI XML file contains an MEI metadata header, which will need to be enhanced.

Content Pages

Each composer represented in the index will need a composer page and every incipit will need its own page. These pages are created using Markdown language and are hosted in this GitHub repository.