Music and Metadata: The Musiconis Database and FAB-Musiconis Project Susan Boynton, Department of Music (Columbia University)
Musiconis (http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/en/) is a metabase that analyzes medieval visual representations of musical performances (instrumental musicians, singers, and dancers) in art from the 8th to the 16th century imported from existing databases, with the addition of music-related metadata. Musiconis came out of a long-term project that involved both music historians and art historians.
In 2016, Columbia joined the Paris team for FAB-Musiconis, a three-year transatlantic exchange involving graduate students and faculty. Graduate student participants learned how to create and edit records in the Musiconis metabase; an engineer improved functionality in real time during working sessions. The Columbia University Libraries supported the project through excellent seminars on metadata, digital humanities seminars, guidance on learning outcomes, and access to spaces and collections. “Representation of Sound and Music in the Middle Ages” (2011-15, Paris) collaborative project supported by the French National Research Agency
Fundamental objectives 1 / creation of a meta-database of images representing medieval music 2 / conceptualization of theoretical tools for a new indexing model, starting point for research on the subject of the representation of the sound, and the place and function of sound in Medieval culture Musiconis: Representation of Sound and Music in the Middle Ages
Original indexing system
1. Import basic information extracted from partner databases: Location, date, century, url, technique, material, accession number, etc.
2. Add musicological & iconological elements: ● A / Organology, playing and singing techniques ● B / Analogies and sound characteristics, as a result of iconographic analysis (symbolic interpretation of images rooted in earlier studies and articulated with the results of the research team).
Musiconis now includes 2200 performances in which are analyzed more than 2300 musicians and 2700 instruments (from 58 separate instruments belonging to 4 families). FAB-Musiconis: 2016-19 (Columbia University and Paris-Sorbonne University Bilingual Musiconis database: http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/en/ Query:
Angel playing a harp Medieval instrumentarium in images
4 families & 29 instruments (in Musiconis)
1. Aerophones (12) 2. Cordophones (12) 3. Membranophones (3) 4. Idiophones (2) Aerophones (1/4)
Shawm, Bagpipe, Pipe
Modern organological feature Aerophones (2/4)
Horn, Cornet, Trumpet, Sackbut
Modern organological feature Modern Aerophones (3/4) organological feature Flute, Double flute, panpipes, Aerophones (4/4)
Organ
Modern reconstruction Modern reconstruction Cordophones 1/5
Lute & gittern
Modern reconstruction Cordophones 2/5
Modern reconstruction
Modern reconstruction Cordophones 3/5 Monocord & dulcimer Cordophones 4/5 Psaltery & Rote, Vielle à roue (Organistrum) Cordophones 5/5
Vièle, Rebec, Viole Membranophones
Bedon, Rommelpot, Tabor Idiophones Bells & Triangle Partner databases
Existing partnerships:
Gothic Ivories Project (The Courtauld Institute of Art) – Image database of carved ivory objects
Initiale (IRHT)- Medieval illuminated manuscripts
Musicastallis (Université Paris-Sorbonne) -Musicians and singers in choirstalls from all over Europe
Romane (CESCM de Poitiers)- Romanesque sculpture and painting
Sculpture (Centre André Chastel) – Architectural sculpture from French cathedrals
Vitrail (Centre André Chastel) – Image database of stained glass from French cathedrals
Metropolitan Museum of Art - Digital image collections of the Metropolitan Museum (added in 2019 by FAB-Musiconis )
Partnerships in the planning or proposal stage:
Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University - iconography database, currently subscription-only access
Pierpont Morgan Library – open-access database of medieval illuminated manuscripts Example of a record from the Gothic Ivories database Musiconis record with iconclass metadata for the scene Musiconis record: performer metadata for 3 instruments Origin of new records: Spreadsheet of medieval musical scenes in the Metropolitan Museum Record on metmuseum.org does not fully describe the instruments in the scene From the Metropolitan Museum website, basic metadata from the collection database Musiconis record for the same manuscript leaf from the Metropolitan Museum Performance classification of the scene in the Musiconis metabase
FAB-Musiconis: 2016-19 (Columbia University and Paris-Sorbonne University
Autres fiches
Editing a scene http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/student/fr/fiche/39/roi- Ex : http://musiconis.huma- david-accordant-une-harpe.html num.fr/student/fr/fiche/1324/839.html http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/student/fr/fiche/68/roi- Geonames ID : 2988507 (MAP) david-accordant-sa-harpe.html
Siècle : 0 Références à la théorie et à la perfection musicale : accordage, loi mathématique divine : Dates : Empty - Empty Univers référentiel du son : musique de la Loi, Notation Iconclass : Empty musique savante
Performateur, Instrument, Nombre de Obs : le roi David semble écouter l'accord pour régler au performateurs mieux l'instrument. La parole de Dieu est marquée comme musicale par l'intervention de David accordant la harpe.
En ligne ? FAB-Musiconis indexing workshops New York April-May 2019 Indexing session studio@butler (2018) Login into Musiconis: http://musiconis-dev.huma-num.fr/login login: student password: etudiant2017
Wiki: http://musiconis-wiki.huma-num.fr/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin login: FabMusiconis password: FabMusiconis19 Database: what to index
In order for a record to be published online in Musiconis, there are 6 principal fields to verify: 1. Title in French and Title in English 2. Locations (current & original) 3. Century + Date 4. Technique 5. Material 6. Performance : musician + instrument (if relevant)
Optional fields to be indexed are located in the Sound section: 1. Sound function 2. Reference to music theory and musical perfection 3. Source of musical inspiration 4. Instrumental classification 5. Referential framework of the sound
Wiki: architecture & tools (templates, queries, properties, special pages)
Why this wiki?
● Started as an explanatory tool for Fab Musiconis ● Is now a teaching tool for first year Musicology students at Sorbonne University (& may be implemented for master students who will become middle and high school teachers, as medieval music is part of the national curriculum) ● Growing importance in the project though LOD features (images from Musiconis, HSI/Mimo inputs, wikidata, etc.) ● Will be connected to DB. Ex: instrument definitions Wiki: architecture Categories Our objective is to provide definitions for Instrument all these interconnected notions. Entries Horn Celestial Eventually, Database music Properties and Wiki will be Angel connected to each other semantically, Sound while remaining 2 separate tools. Performer Wiki: categories
Each of the pages in the Category namespace represents a so-called category, a grouping of related pages, and contains an index for the pages of its category. If you open the category page, you will see a link to this page there. EX: "Category:Instrument" To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where Name is the name of the category you want to add it to).
[[Category: Name]]
Wiki: properties
Properties are the basic way of entering Examples of types semantic data in Semantic MediaWiki. ● Page - Holds names of wiki pages, and Properties can be viewed as «categories for displays them as a link ● Boolean - Holds boolean (true/false) values in wiki pages». values ● Date - Holds particular points in time They are used by a simple markup, similar to the ● Email - Holds e-mail addresses syntax of links in MediaWiki: ● Monolingual text - Holds a text value that associates the annotation with a specific language code ● Number - Holds integer and decimal numbers, with an optional exponent [[Property name::property value]] ● URL - Holds URIs/URLs ● Reference - Holds a value that associates it to individual defined provenance metadata record (important for Properties have types. By default -> Pages wikidata)
Wiki: tools -> special pages
From MediaWiki Semantic MediaWiki Only ● Uncategorized files ● Browse wiki ● Uncategorized pages ● Property label similarity report ● Unused files ● Search by property ● Unused properties ● Semantic MediaWiki Graph ● All pages ● Semantic search ● Properties ● Search ● File list ● List of files with duplicates Wiki: tools -> inline queries Selecting pages The following queries show what this means:
1. [[Family::+]] gives all pages that have any family annotated. 2. [[Is played by::Angel]] gives all pages of instruments being played by angels. 3. [[Has interlanguage link.Page content language::en]] gives all pages annotated as being written in English
We can also combine those requirements:
{{#ask:
[[Family::+]] [[Is played by::Angel]] [[Has interlanguage link.Page content language::en]]
}} Wiki: tools -> inline queries Examples of queries and result lists are available in the Sandbox
Parser function #ask The basic way of writing an inline query is to use the parser function #ask. The query string and any printout statements are directly given as parameter, like in the following example:
== Modern instruments == {{#ask: [[Category: Reconstitution]] |?Has instrument }} Wiki: tools -> queries ● Examples of queries and result lists are available in the Sandbox
To build a query, you may use the Semantic search special page:
Wiki: tools -> templates
Semantic templates are a method of including the markup that Semantic MediaWiki introduces through MediaWiki templates. This has several advantages:
● users can specify annotations without learning any new syntax ● annotations are used consistently, i.e. users do not have to look for the right properties or categories when editing a page ● infobox-style templates provide data structure, by defining which values belong in which pages ● infobox-style templates also often provide a nice display for the data Wiki: tools -> templates New features this spring
New Semantic Result Formats extension Semantic Result Formats is an extension to extension "Semantic MediaWiki" that adds a large number of further result formats, including formats for calendars, timelines, charts, graphs and mathematical functions. The result formats can be used in inline queries and other semantic searches. Examples available in the Sandbox. Indexing images in the wiki
[[Category : Performance]] '''Performer''' ''Type(s):'' [[Has description :: Musicien jouant [[Has performer type :: Acrobat]] d'une flûte ou d'un instrument à [[Has performer type :: Musician]] anche, musicien-équilibriste jouant [[Has performer type :: Juggler]] de la vièle, équilibriste tenant une ''Genre'' épée et jongleur de couteaux]] [[Has genre :: Man]] ''Sound'' '''Date''' [[Sound function :: accompaniment]] [[Has date :: 1111]] [[Sound function :: engenderment of the letter]] '''Instrument(s)''' ---- [[Has instrument :: Lute]] [[URL :: http://musiconis.huma- [[Has instrument :: Viele]] num.fr/fr/fiche/178/musicien]] [[Has instrument :: Shawm]] Resources
Database
Previous workshop descriptions : Winter 2019 + Hackaton 2018
Presentation on instrumentarium from Winter 2019
References, online and print: ○ Instruments médievaux : reference for medieval organology (in FR) ○ Oxford Music Online: via Columbia via Sorbonne ○ CNRTL (lexicography) ○ Marin Mersenne, Harmonie Universelle ○ Dictionnaire de musique, Rousseau (1768) ○ Dictionnaire de musique, Brossard (1703)
RBML manuscript session with Alexis Hagadorn, Vasare Rastonis, Consuelo Dutschke Pop-up concert in the Music and Arts Library, during a project reception and presentation 2019 FAB-Musiconis participant Jenna Schoen presenting her digital humanities project in studio@butler 2018 participant Mark Saccomano presenting research at the Princeton University DH Center Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the Columbia University Libraries for their generous support of FAB-Musiconis!
We are very grateful to the following people for their contributions to the project in 2016-2019: Lucy Appert Eamonn Bell Amber Billey Elizabeth Davis Consuelo Dutschke Paula Gabbard Alex Gil Alexis Hagadorn Andre Laboy Jennifer Lee Russell Merritt Nick Patterson Vasare Rastonis Barbara Rockenbach Melanie Wacker Jeffrey Wayno