The Virtual Score: Representation, Retrieval, Restoration.
Computing in Musicology 12
edited by Walter B. Hewlett and Eleanor Selfridge-Field,
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002
300 pp., illus. Paper, $28.00.
ISBN 0-262-58209-0, ISSN 1057-9478
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
Computing in Musicology is a series that began in 1985 as a survey of
current applications in musicology. The overall focus of this volume,
on the musical score in the age of the computer and especially Internet
applications, is divided into three sections that may at first seem
unrelated. The first deals with representation and interchange of musical
data between applications.The second deals with retrieval and/or analysis
of data from encoded melodies and the third with image retrieval and/or
analysis of the visual sources of music. 19 contributions in all.
In the first section, two authors are discussing some problems of the
notation of early music. Theodor Dumitrescu tackles the problems of
mensural notation and Stefan Morent writes about the representation
of the music of Hildegard Von Bingen. Didier Langolff, Nadine Baptiste-Jessel
and Danny Levy describe Niff transcription and Generation of Braille
Musical Scores and Silas Brown looks at an Extensible system for converting
a traditional score into braille.
No less than five articles deal with different aspects of representation.
The well-known GUIDO format is explained by Holger Hoos, Keith Hamel,
Kai Renz and Jurgen Killian. A different terrain is explored by several
authors who look at the possibilities of XML and extentions of XML.
A general introduction to XML for music applications is given by Gerd
Castan, Michael Good and Perry Roland. Each of them focuses on a different
development: Gerd Castan adds an XML implementation of the Notation
Interchange File Format (NIFF) into NIFFML, Michael Good writes about
MusicXML for Notation and Analysis and Perry Roland looks at MDL and
MusiCat: An XML approach to Musical Data and Meta-Data. The final paper
in the first section, an overview of the Electronic Dissemination of
Notated Music, is expertly compiled by Don Anthony, Charles Cronin and
Eleanor Selfridge-Field.
The second section has three papers of a very different nature, even
if they are all about retrieval and analysis. Bret Aarden and David
Huron (who developed the Humdrum representational system) have mapped
European Folksongs and are detecting patterns in the geographical occurance
of certain so-called 'germanic' musical features. Or, rather, they think
they can detect a distinctive feature of germanic musical culture because
of the geographical distribution of the songs. Either way, the work
illustrates the power of computer-assisted ethnomusical analysis. Jane
Singer describes in great detail an application for detecting the features
of monophonic vocal melodies and Jim Stanley and Anthony Kearns present
HymnQuest, a DARMS parser for hymn-tune searching which allows to find
the origin of scraps of British hymns by text, author, melody and even
liturgical relevance. Many a parson will be happily applying for funds
to be able to use this beautiful application in his parrish church!
The third and final section has six papers on Virtual Restoration of
Sources. William Koseluk wrote an excellent overview of the field, pointing
at the opportunities the Web seems to offer.
Andrew Wathey, Margaret Bent and Julia Craig-McFeely discuss the creation
of a Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM). Alejandro Enrique
Planchart uses image-enhancement procedures for medieval manuscripts,
retreiving, among other things, musical information which has been scraped
away from palimpsests. Philip Brett and Jeremy Smith wrote 'Computer
Collation of Divergent Early Prints in the Byrd Edition' and Dexter
Edge discusses the Digital Imaging of Watermarks.
Computers come in handy for some tasks involving music which is closer
to our days as well. Patricia Hall has made an Electronic Facsimile
of Berg's sketches for Wozzeck.
At www.ccarh.org/publications/cm/12 one can leisurely browse through
some of the images the authors have produced.
