Music Notation and Encoding

ISMIR Graduate School, Barcelona 2004

Musicology 2

Frans Wiering, ICS, Utrecht University

Outline

Common Music Notation Other notations Encoding music notation Music corpora

How to Read Music Without Really TryingDonald Byrd, School of Music, Indiana University

Rev. August 2004 (adapted FW)

Four basic parameters of a definite-pitched musical note

1. pitch: how high or low the sound is: perceptual analog of frequency

2. duration: how long the note lasts

3. loudness: perceptual analog of amplitude

4. timbre or tone quality Above is decreasing order of importance for

most Western music

CMN (Common/Conventional Music Notation)(after Don Byrd) CMN shows at least six

aspects of music: NP1. Pitches (how high or low):

on vertical axis NP2. Durations (how long):

indicated by note/rest shapes NP3. Loudness: indicated by

signs like p, mf, etc. NP4. Timbre (tone quality):

indicated with words like “violin”, “pizzicato”, etc.

Start times: on horizontal axis Voicing: mostly indicated by

staff; in complex cases also shown by stem direction, beams, etc.

Also shown: measures (beat groups) pitch modifiers (flats and

sharps)

The keyboard (www.keyscreen.com)

Durations (American English)(library.thinkquest.org)

1. Whole2. Half3. Quarter4. Eighth5. Sixteenth6. etc.

duration tricks: rests:

Rhythm and meter

rhythm: the pattern of (relative) durations

measure: recurring beat pattern

meter: type of measure, expressed in fraction number of beats type of beat eg: 4/4, 7/2

Extensibility of notation (representational completeness)

CMN seems closed system (like an alphabet), but it isn’t historical change creativity precision (Mahler scores!) abbreviation example: chord abbreviations,

as in fake books http://www.eddielandsberg.com/jeanine_800x965.jpg

Extremes of CMN collected by Don Byrd at http://php.indiana.edu/~donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm

Before CMN (1)

neumes, c. 900 (from New Grove)

plainchant, 17th c. (www.loc.gov)

describe differences to CMN a little

Before CMN (2)

mensural notation, early 16th c. (www.loc.gov)

(from DIAMM)

Tablature (exx: New Grove)

18th c. lute tablature

koto tablature

klavarskribo (20th c.)

Different aspects of notation

mnemonic neumes

framework for improvisation fake book basso continuo John Cage

performer instruction (lute) tablature much CMN

composer’s intention 19th/20th century classical music

What is a basic musical ‘unit’

example units song

the performance/recording classical music

work: independent creation, realized in (more than one) performance and codified in notation

early music instance: piece exists in many different forms

(but see also Chopin first editions!) number of voices, levels of elaboration etc. Opera

improvisation framework: archetypal melody, chord pattern, ‘raga’

consequences: the work ‘is’ not always the notation not all aspects of notation are always equally important (may reflect local

circumstances rather than intention) it may be necessary to derive supplementary information

but how?

Summary

principal dimensions: pitch and time additional dimensions complexity non-CM notations relation to basic musical unit

Encoding music notation

General characteristics Purposes of music encoding before MIR Surveys Requirements Some (once) popular encoding systems Unification and interchange Music corpora What if you want to work with encoded notation

General characteristics

translating notation to digital representation or note-like information, as in MIDI

alphanumeric and binary encoding systems very many formats have been proposed and

are still in use interchange is a problem generally not designed for retrieval

Purposes of music encoding before MIR Music printing and publishing

DARMS project and encoding (60s-80s) proprietary systems since the 80s (Finale, Sibelius) encoding systems tend to be exhaustive

Cataloguing RISM project: cataloguing all music written before 1800.

Beginnings in Plaine and easie code non-exhaustive systems

Music analysis ESAC: folksong collections Humdrum: flexible encoding system for arbitrary (combination of)

parameters Sound Control

MIDI playing instructions

Surveys

www.music-notation.info Gerd Castan 71 different music encoding systems listed with

links to software and web pages definitely incomplete

Beyond MIDI. The Handbook of Musical Codes. ed. Eleanor Selfridge-Field (1997) c. 27 music encoding systems, detailed

descriptions non-proprietory formats only

Requirements

some ideas representational completeness aptness extensibility efficient structure follows music mnemonic

More on creating encoding systems: David Huron (1992) Beyond Midi (chapter by David Halperin)

Some (once) popular encoding systems

Plaine And Easie Code Barry S. Brook, Murray Gould (1964) writing music with a typewriter (card) catalogues

DARMS Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg (1963); Raymond Erickson cheap printing of avant-garde music, very rich encoding set standard for later encoding systems later: analytical applications

[right:] ''4CC/GG/AA/GG/FF/EE/D8.D6E/2C://:[left: ] ,4C'C/EC/FC/EC/D,B/'C,A/FG/2C://:

!I1 !G,!F!M2:4 6Q 6Q / 10Q 10Q / 11Q 11Q / 10Q 10Q / 9Q 9Q / 8Q 8Q / 7Q 7E. 8S / 6H :/: !-50 K next line employs the 'carry feature' for durations $!M2:4 4Q 11 / 13 11 / 14 11 / 13 11 / 12 10 / 11 9 / 7 8 / 4H :/:

More

ESAC Helmut Schaffrath (1980s) analysis of folksong monophonic; phrase

structure encoded. Used for testing automatic segmenting (Jane Singer?)

MuseData Walter Hewlett, late 1980s logical content of musical

scores printing, analysis,

generation of sound

right:KEY[C0000 16 C2/4]MEL[1__1__ 5__5__ 6__6__ 5__5__ 4__4__ 3__3__ 2__2_.3 1___]

left:KEY[C0000 4 C2/4]MEL[--1-1 -3-1 -4-1 -3-1 -2--7 -1--6 --4--5 --1_]

$ Q:4 K:0 T:2/4 S:2 C1:4 C2:22SC5 4 1 q d1C5 4 1 q d1back 8C3 4 2 q u2C4 4 2 q d2measure 2G5 4 1 q d1G5 4 1 q d1back 8E4 4 2 q d2C4 4 2 q d2

Humdrum David Huron, c. 1990 http://csml.som.ohio-state.edu/Humdrum/ syntax for developing (light-weight) encoding systems

data organised in parallel ‘spines’ humdrum representation for CMN: kern

humdrum tools (UNIX) sample analytical problems (total: 350):

Locate instances of the pitch sequence D-S-C-H in Shostakovich's music.

Are German drinking songs more likely to be in triple meter.

Determine whether Haydn tends to avoid V-IV progressions.

Find all woodwind quintets in compound meters that contain a change of key.

Classify cadences as either authentic, plagal or deceptive.

Determine whether the words `high,' `hoch,' or `haut' tend to coincide with higher pitches in a vocal work.

many can be rephrased as music IR problems

**kern **kern*staff2 *staff1=1- =1-*clefF4 *clefG2*k[] *k[]*M2/4 *M2/4*^ *2ryy 4C 4cc. 4c 4cc=2 =2 =22ryy 4e 4gg. 4c 4gg=3 =3 =32ryy 4f 4aa. 4c 4aa=4 =4 =42ryy 4e 4gg. 4c 4gg=5 =5 =52ryy 4d 4ff. 4B 4ff=6 =6 =62ryy 4c 4ee. 4A 4ee=7 =7 =7

MIDI

controlling electronic instruments pitch represented by key

number different types of events

note on/off, and many others

used for (very lossy) data exchange

Not mentioned Guido Score

MFile 1 2 1024MTrk0 TimeSig 2/4 24 80 KeySig 0 major0 Tempo 50000016385 Meta TrkEndTrkEndMTrk0 Meta TrkName "Acoustic Grand

Piano"0 PrCh ch=1 p=00 On ch=1 n=72 v=640 On ch=1 n=48 v=641024 Off ch=1 n=72 v=01024 On ch=1 n=72 v=641024 Off ch=1 n=48 v=01024 On ch=1 n=60 v=642048 Off ch=1 n=72 v=02048 Off ch=1 n=60 v=02048 On ch=1 n=79 v=642048 On ch=1 n=64 v=643072 Off ch=1 n=79 v=03072 On ch=1 n=79 v=643072 Off ch=1 n=64 v=03072 On ch=1 n=60 v=644096 Off ch=1 n=79 v=0

Unification and interchange

formats designed for interchange between applications rich descriptions of musical content

SMDL ISO 10743. Based on HyTime/SGML domains

logical (cantus, the abstract work); markup defined visual (score); container gestural (performance); container analytical; container

never used; concepts circulate NIFF

interchange of music notation data, page-oriented was supported by part of the industry still alive???

MusicXML developed by Michael Good

(www.recordare.com) quotes from the site:

open format, usable by as many applications as possible

Dolet software uses MusicXML to provide a "universal translator" between music notation programs.

Music corpora (1)

RISM (PAEC) 470.000 incipits on CD-ROM

MIDI (everywhere) http://www.classicalarchives.com/ (8000 works) restricted access uneven quality

CCARH http://www.ccarh.org Musedata, Humdrum (nearly 4000 movements of classical

works) sources: out-of copyricht editions of Great Classical Composers quality of encoding

Music corpora (2)

Graphic formats Choral Public Domain Library (http://www.cpdl.org/) 7800 scores sheet music, mostly in graphic formats

Esac http://www.esac-data.org/ 20.000 songs and instrumental melodies, mostly from

Germany, Poland and China, with minor collections from other (mostly European) countries

least incomplete survey: http://php.indiana.edu/~donbyrd/MusicTestCollections.HTML

what happens to music corpora after a while sad case of Princeton Josquin project (1970s)

most punchcards are lost what remains is unusable

What if you want to work with encoded notation developing yet another encoding system may not be very wise

most encoding systems are richer than necessary for most music IR applications

get scores (as ‘ground truth’ for signal processing?) collect from the Internet conversion not too many quality issue

encode scores extremely timeconsuming

OCR gets better and better

work of Ichiro Fujinaga (will be at ISMIR) still relatively high error percentages