♫ = Σ*(f.φ): NEUMES (Neumed & Ekphonetic Universal Manuscript Encoding Standard).

<body style="margin-left:37px; margin-right:33px; background-color:rgb(253,254,188); color:#000000;" onLoad="noop=loadfn();"> <H1><font color="navy">The NEUMES Project</font></H1> "NEUMES" is an acronym for Neumed and Ekphonetic Universal Manuscript Encoding Standard.<br> The purpose of the NEUMES Project is to design a data representation for digital transcription of medieval chant manuscripts, and to build a software infrastructure with which users can accomplish useful work with such data.<br> Our goal is to create a uniform means by which the content of medieval chant manuscripts can be compared, searched, and analyzed by computer regardless of the notational type. The encoding system must also preserve enough notation-specific information from the source, that a stylized diplomatic facsimile can be generated from the data.<br> <P>Follow this link for the <A HRef="main.htm">non-frame version of this site</A>.</P> <br>This Web site requires JavaScript and HTML Frames for proper viewing.<br> <br> <HR Width="87%"> <H2 Align="center">Motivations</H2> The thousands of medieval manuscripts containing musical notation are among the monuments of Western culture. Their study, over many generations, has allowed scholars to retrace the foundations and the development of Western music and have contributed to many scholarly disciplines.<br> <br> These documents are best studied comparatively, and much work has been done in this area. But comparison is limited by the varieties and styles of musical notation which, although they have basic conceptual elements in common, vary enormously in detail, and as to what information is transmitted.<br> <br> The detailed comparative study that digital transcription will allow, will permit highly important insights into the nature and development of medieval music which are not possible at present.<br> <br> Many of the comparative operations that have become increasing possible and increasing important with computer-aided methods, are hampered by the intractability of neumes with respect to modern musical notation.<br> <br> Clearly, our methods of comparison and description remain woefully inadequate, and we still lack the tools for comparison and description that we might wish in order to be 'scientific'.<br> <br> <HR Width="87%"> <H2 Align="center">Goals</H2> "<B>NEUMES</B>" is an acronym for Neumed and Ekphonetic Universal Manuscript Encoding Standard.<br> <br> The purpose of the Project is to design and build a software infrastructure for digital transcription and description of medieval chant manuscripts. The goal is a uniform means by which the content of manuscripts can be viewed, searched, and analyzed by computer.<br> <br> The Phase One initiative has realized important progress toward an effective <I>data representation</I> for neumed chant, such that: <OL> <LI> melodic patterns can be compared across all types of Western and Eastern neume notation;</LI> <LI> a <I>diplomatic facsimile</I> of a source can be derived from the data;</LI> <LI> hyperlinks tie transcriptions to images, database indexes, or other online content; and</LI> <LI> large sets of online transcriptions will be searchable with computational efficiency.</LI> </OL> Our work has focused on resolution of basic technical problems and 'boundary conditions' of early types of notation. Results include the <B><I>NEUMES</I></B> taxonomy and the <B><I>NeumesXML</I></B> Schema.<br> <br> Phase Two will continue to expand and refine the data representation, improve our software for data-entry and visualization, and work on melodic pattern matching.<br> <br> <HR Width="87%"> <H2 Align="center">Background</H2>  The earliest-known graphical notations of music in Western Europe date from the 9th century <span style="font-variant: small-caps">c.e.</span>, when symbol systems called <i>neume notation</i> first appear in surviving manuscripts. The term 'neume notation' comprises many <i>emergent</i> systems that gradually converged in a single system called <i>square-neume notation,</i> which is the precursor of modern musical notation. In the Dark Ages monasteries were the refuges of literacy, and so it is not surprising that musical notation first appears in liturgical manuscripts.<br> <br> The term 'neume' is used also for the chant notations of Byzantine or other Eastern manuscripts. They may have an even more ancient provenence than do the Western notations, and they evolved along a separate path. Eastern neumatic symbols show up- and down-movement of the voice, without using Y-axis position to denote relative pitch (as would become common practice in the West).<br> <br> Primitive neumation was just marks added to an existing text. This idea is similar to the <i>prosodic marks</i> that medieval scribes added to classical texts as hints to proper declamation. Scholars today believe that early neumatic signs may have evolved from accent marks.<br> <br> Early neumation is <i>indeterminate</i>; one cannot sight-sing from it. Its use was likely in reference to melodies that had been memorized. The manuscripts may have been consulted to confirm the melodies of the day's liturgy.<br> <br> The oldest-known manuscripts of Greek liturgical chant are in <i>ekphonetic notation.</i> It uses just pairs of marks (at the start and end of a phrase) to denote melodic formulae on phrases of text. It is a separate category from later neumation, since its symbols denote entire melodic patterns, not individual tones.<br> <br> <HR Width="87%"> <H2 Align="center">Definition</H2>  <b>Neume</b> an element of medieval musical notation for chant.<br> <br> Some chant scholars describe a neume as a "breathing" or a melodic "gesture"; this view is consistent with medieval usage of the word. Today, the popular view is that each disjoint shape is a neume. For purposes of the NEUMES Project, we define "neume" as a group of one or more <i>neumatic symbols,</i> with the following conditions.<br> <b>(a)</b> A "neumatic symbol" is a minimal unit of neumatic writing that affects the <i>meaning</i> of the musical notation. Analogously, the dot over a letter 'i' does not affect meaning, and so it is not an alphabetical symbol; accents (e.g., an umlaut over a letter 'i') generally do affect meaning.<br> <b>(b)</b> A neume can comprise just one neumatic symbol or several symbols; similarly an Egyptian hieroglyphic <i>cartouche</i> may contain one or more symbols.<br> <b>(c)</b> A neume conveys melodic inflection or expression; it may, but does not always, indicate pitches or durations of notes.<br> <b>(d)</b> A neume is associated with a vowel of the chanted text.<br> <b>(e)</b> In a melisma there can be several neumes writtten on one syllable of text.<br> <br> <HR Width="87%">    <br clear="all"><br> <table Align="left" Cellspacing="0" Cellpadding="2" style="font: bold 10px Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:#003366;"> <colgroup><col width="6"><col width="40"><col width="12"> <col width="*"><col width="20"></colgroup><tbody> <tr VAlign="middle"> <td width="6"> </td> <td width="40"><img width="40" height="48" SRC="http://purl.oclc.org/SCRIBE/NEUMES/images/eduserv2.gif" alt="Eduserv Foundation"></td> <td width="12"> </td> <td>Supported by Eduserv. The NEUMES Project is funded in part by a Research Grant awarded to the University of Oxford by the <a HRef="http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/" Target="_blank">Eduserv Foundation</a> ["Developing the infrastructure for a distributed <span style="white-space:nowrap;">e-library</span> of medieval music transcriptions in standardised format"; March 2005 - August 2007; Professor Peter Jeavons, Applicant].</td> <td width="20"> </td></tr> <tr VAlign="middle"> <td></td> <td><img width="40" height="50" SRC="http://purl.oclc.org/SCRIBE/NEUMES/images/mellon.gif" alt="The Andrew W. Mellon"></td> <td></td> <td>The NEUMES Project has been developed with the aid of a Scholarly Communications Grant awarded to Harvard University by <a HRef="http://www.mellon.org" Target="_blank">The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation</a> ["Digital Encoding for Medieval Chant Transcription; Phase One Project"; October 2001 - March 2003; Prof. Thomas Forrest Kelly, Principal Investigator].</td> <td></td></tr>  <TR><TD></TD> <TD Colspan="3"><br> "Google" is a trademark of Google Inc. "Internet Explorer" is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. "Java" is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Unicode" is a trademark of Unicode, Inc.</TD> <TD></TD></TR>  </tbody></table><br clear="left">   <table style="border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; border-color:#003333; border-style:solid; font: bold 10px Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:#003366;" Width="94%" Align="center" CellPadding="9" CellSpacing="0"> <tr><td><font Color="#0010A0">Copyright Statement:</font> All "content" of this Web site (including but not limited to all documents, programs, and images on this page and related pages of this site) is protected by U.S. and international copyright law under one or more of the following copyrights, or other copyrights to content of particular pages of this site.<br> <br> Copyright © 2005, The University of Oxford.<br> Copyright © 2003-2005, Louis W. G. Barton.<br> Copyright © 2002-2003, The President and Fellows of Harvard College; contains software or other intellectual property licensed from Louis W. G. Barton, copyright © 1995-2001 by Louis W. G. 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