From Feet of Clay to the Dagstuhl Core

A proposalhow to provide musicologists and music theorists

with data they can work with

Andreas KornstädtCenter for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities

Stanford University

Where we are

• What format to choose?• Well-Suited for printing / analysis / parsing• Lots of tools / data• High quality of data• Flexibility, XML / non-XMLformat “competition”

– No decision because users and corpus builders are confused (Paderborn 2007)

– Excel, ASCII and MIDI as usual

Research plans of gold, data base of clay

Where we are

• Hardly any high qualitytranslations so far with fewexceptions(for exampleMuseData -> SCORE,SCORE -> Kern)

Hardly any improvement over the course of 12 years (“Beyond MIDI”)

Proposals so far

• Come up with one silver bullet format that becomes the central hub or makes everything else obsolete

Didn’t work so far and won’t work (psychology, special features)

New proposal

• Inspiration from Dublin Core – Core metadata features (everyone

can provide more, of course)– Independent of representation

Easy translation of core metadata between different implementations

“Dagstuhl Core”

• Core musical features which– a format must be able to represent– a piece of translation software must preserve

(A format / translator can provide more, of course)

DC

P&E

MIDI

“Dagstuhl Core”

• Independent of representation- XML / spines / columns / tables / arrays- accidentals on every note or once per bar?- …

“Dagstuhl Core” Benefits

• Keep your favorite format

• Provide high-quality translators

• Use the strengths of other formats for a certain task then convert back to your favorite

Ends the waiting gameHelps finding gaps in existing formats and

translators

Input: Tim

• Core features have been described before. What’s the point?

Input: Alan

• To include everything would be to copy the universe—impossible

• Be aware of what is not represented.• Be explicit about what is not represented.• Know about others’ representations, then

yours is more likely to be good.• Do test your representation against something

real, preferably real music or real musical behaviour.

Status

• It’s difficult to learn about formats and translators from an independent viewpoint because knowledge is scattered or contains blind spots

• Like Patterns in Software Engineering: Categories applied to something concrete facilitate discussion

Core as feature set of reference for formats and converters

Based on heavily used formats (bottom up)Limited to 1750 - 1935

Status

• Features have been selected• Basic y/e/n for 4 formats

Next:• Images for feature clarification• Footnotes for every cell• Website• Use as completeness indicator• More formats• converters