daemon%bartok@SUN.COM (08/30/89)
Music-Research Digest Tue, 29 Aug 89 Volume 4 : Issue 52
Today's Topics:
Newsletter (ICTM)
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Date: Tue, 29 Aug 89 17:28:47 GMT
From: Schaffrath <JMP100@EARN.DE0HRZ1A>
Subject: Newsletter (ICTM)
To: Stephen Page <SDPAGE@UK.AC.OX.PRG>
Universitaet Essen - GHS
FB 4, Musik
Prof. Dr. Helmut Schaffrath
4300 Essen 1
Co-Chairman of the "Study Group on Computer Aided Research"
in the "INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL for TRADITIONAL MUSIC"
(ICTM)
The "Database of all Databases" is "in formation" as you can read
in the present issue, but we ask you to announce further pro-
jects. So, if you have not done it allready, please do send the
questionnaire back to Essen!
[ Did he mean the pun on "information"?? - S ]
There is another database project of public use. EDVLIT (maybe
one could rename it) contains more than 1000 books or articles on
music and computer. Also here you are invited to share the work
which cannot be done reasonably just in one institution by one
person!
We are also glad to report about the first software(s) available
for our members and whoever wants to test it. At least MAPPET is
public domain now. The present INFO gives you quite some informa-
tion.
I personally have to thank all friends who wrote letters in pro-
test to our NRW- ministry. Since these letters are now answered
in standardized form, you can stop returning copies to Essen. See
page 7f for more comments.
I finally hope you all had a good and inspiring holiday so that I
soon will receive contributions for the next issue.
Best wishes from
H. Schaffrath
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 1
STG-meeting in Schladming
_________________________
All which can be said is that the meeting was very successful.
Papers or abstracts have not been sent to Essen or they were pu-
blished already in our last newsletter. The two papers about Chi-
nese music can be ordered here (one of which because of graphics
only in printout). There is also a paper on "The value of the
coefficient M.r. (mobilate relativa) as premise in the Systemati-
zation of Romanian popular music, by the aid of computer" from G.
Suliteanu (Romania, STG on analysis) in printout. For any other
papers please write to Iannis Zannos, Dr. E. Lubej, Kathryn
Vaughn and Shubha Chaudhuri.
STG-meeting 1990: Marseille, September
______________________________________
We all agreed at the Schladming meeting that Marseille in Septem-
ber 1990 would be marvellous. Bernard Bel offers to prepare this
conference in the last week of September. This also enables the
members of the STG on Analysis to join us after their conference
in Spain. Bernard would like some of our members to stay on for
the "2nd colloqium on musical structures" which will be held in
Marseille after October 3rd 1990. "There will be a special sec-
tion on anthropology, in which we will discuss how much contem-
porary music theory may gain from non-Western systems. Prof.
John Blacking accepted to chair that discussion."
Call for suggestions
There is one special topic for the meeting up to now: Transforma-
tion of musical codes. We want to write programs in different
languages to transform one musical code into another. I am there-
fore expecting lists of program-language, hardware and code from
our members, which then should be published in our next newslet-
ter.
Please feel free for additional suggestions!
And please do reserve the last week in September 1990!
More - I hope - in the next INFO.
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 2
Transcription software for Atari-ST
___________________________________
Our new (still "passive") member, Margot L. Philip has passed on
the following abstract:
"Possibilities of transcribing single-part, to some extent also
multi- part music with the help of a computer are being explored
by Margot Philip (Beuzlen 6, 7140 Ludwigsburg 11, FRG). She is
using the Atari 1040ST and software called ISIS (Interactive Si-
gnal Inspection System) designed by Johannes Philipp. ISIS allows
the display of digitized music in the form of an oscillogram on
the computer screen; any segment of it can be "cut" with the help
of the cursor on the screen, made audible if desired and measured
by the computer in length (no. of milli-seconds) or in pitch
(instantaneous frequency sequence). The output of the measurement
results is possible either as a list of numbers or, in the case
of pitch measurements, in a graphic form showing melody contour
in time- frequency-coordinates. The software has proved to be
quite useful for analysis, for example, of an Afro-Caribbean song
type called "cariso" which to the Western researcher seems rather
free both in tonality and rhythm." 1)
Keywords from Copmuter & Music Database: EDVLIT
_______________________________________________
The load of articles and other publications on computer and music
is very havy. The plan was to serve our STG with another, biblio-
graphic, database in which one can select literature according to
any stored word and number (such as Bibliography containing only
certain authors and/or keywords from a certain year onwards).
It is however impossible to specialize only on subjects that eth-
nomusicologists could be interested in, because at the present
state of computer-aided research we must be interested in every
topic!
After having collected more than 1000 titles I consider the pro-
ject still too accidential for a single institution. The more
efficient method as it seems might be to specialize in different
subjects and institutions, since any of our STG-members must have
special interests that could be (and perhaps are) collected at
his/her place. He or her then could profit from the collection of
someone else etc. - This also should become a topic for our data-
base of all databases as the above mentioned titles (like
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 6
ETNOBOB, EDVLIT and "Bibliographic Update") suggest.
The existing bibliography contains a list of keywords which enab-
les a printout (or file) under certain topics. This list might
serve as the first point of discussion for specialized bibliogra-
phies in different institutions. Please do inform me, if someone
is collecting some of these topics and if you have suggestions
about different (additional) keywords. You can also feel free in
asking for the complete list then.
Maybe there should be a central database (which could be here in
Essen) that would have to be updated by the specialized institu-
tions once or twice a year?
Here is the preliminary list of keywords in EDVLIT:
GERMAN KEYWORD ENGLISH
____________________________________
Allgemein General
Analyse Analysis
Archiv Archiving
CS Cognitive Science
Code Encoding
Computer .. & Computer
Datenbank Database
Ethno Ethnomus. topics
Grammatik Grammar
Hacker Hacker
Input Input
KI AI
Komposition Composition
Linguistik Linguistics
MIDI MIDI
Musikpsychologie Music-psychology
Musikp{dagogik Music-pedagogy
Musiktheorie Music-Theory
Philosophie Philosophy
Psychologie Psychology
P{dagogik Pedagogy
Repr{sentation Representation
Sammlung Collections
Sound Sound
Sprache Language
Statistik Statistics
Technik ... & techniques
Theorie Theory
Transcription Transcription
Volkslied Folksong
Personal changes at Essen
_________________________
Barbara Jesser who has been working in this institution for more
than four years has left for her (second) teacher training. We
have to thank her especially for her programs in PL/I and Pascal.
The below mentioned software bares her name in the copyright.
Many of you will also remember her papers in Berlin and
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 7
Edinburgh. We will miss her very much not only because there is
no more specialist in programing here. Her dissertation is fi-
nished (though not yet printed) and will be mentioned with MAPPET
(see below).
According to my research in China we needed some specialist on
Chinese music and folksongs. Ms. Zuozhi Zhang from Shanghai is
now paid by Volkswagen Foundation to support this institute. The
situation in China however does not allow us to speed on. The
first invitation for a researcher from Shanghai was at least
postponed because the respective ministry in China has to examine
the person first and needs more than 6 months to do so. This may
serve as an example of how cooperation in music research can be
obstructed by politicians.
The very unpolitical aim of the project consists of automatic
analysis and retrieval of Chinese folksong melodies (including
verbal documentation). We have to find out how many methods of
MAPPET can be used for this purpose, which have to be changed and
which can serve for a cross-cultural comparison later. The Chine-
se institutions are now equipped with MAPPET though not with com-
puters, which Folkswagen Foundation might still pay.
NRW-ministry justifies itself
_____________________________
Our ministry has now obviously begun to answer the many indivi-
dual letters you wrote in protest of closing down this instituti-
on by copying three pages in German for everybody. So there is no
further information when you send me a copy of your letter!
The answer from D}sseldorf shows that truth has many faces. There
is, for instance, not a single word which mentions the different
status of "Musikhochschule" and "Universit{t" both for students
and for teachers. When the ministry says the question whether
University or Conservatory had been discussed over and over, then
you should know the following:
Since 1978 any university in this county (province) has strongly
objected to the plans which means at least 30 music professors or
90 music teachers from universities fought against these plans.
There are three conservatories on the other hand, two out of
which do want to perform these studies. This means at the same
time there was a maximum of 3 (!) faculty professors which ob-
viously can dominate 30. This might be called "democracy for mi-
norities".
The same is true for students: The minority of 1 student for
secondary education I and 5 students for primary education have
now applied to study at the Essen conservatory (in comparison
there are mostly 25 vs. 10 in our institution). Statistics will
show where the rest is studying. At the same time the ministry
wants to "re-educate" 2800 (!) public school teachers of other
subjects for music!
The friends and members who have received this letter from
D}sseldorf may sceptically look at words like "can study", "start
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 8
to check", "possibly", "I am sure..." and others. The context,
however, in which the ministry suggests your agreement that espe-
cially teachers for primary education should have high-brow prac-
tical education is simply impertinent.
I highly doubt the remark that my research activities were "well
known" before your letters arrived. It is simply wrong, for in-
stance, that the (in other aspects very good) equippment of my
collegue Prof. Reith "allows world-wide transmission of data",
unless the minister means snail-mail on discettes.
So far some comments.
STG-software: MAPPET (now public domain)
________________________________________
"Music Analysis, Play-in, Playback of ESAC Transcriptions" is the
result of some years of research. This was mainly performed by
Barbara Jesser and will be published in her dissertation:
Interaktive Melodieanalyse; Methodik und Anwendung computer-
gest}tzter Analyseverfahren in Musikethnologie und Volkslied-
forschung: typologische Untersuchung der Balladensammlung des
DVA.
The dissertation cannot be accepted before October. Since the
research is based but not written on software, the package can be
made available to the public now.
It should be said first that our software package was designed to
play-in, playback, control, analyse, STORE and RETRIEVE great
masses of Western one-part melodies. It consequently can be used
best in connection with an effective database-system, which in
our case is AskSam. One should also know that up to now it is
only compiled with German prompts on IBM/compatible machines, but
this will be extended.
MAPPET is public domain but we want you to sign the licence
agreement which you find at the end of this newsletter. You will
then receive a discette (please send a 360K discette).
Owners of PERSONAL COMPOSER can also use the program NOTE which
transfers ESAC into Record-Mode files for this software. You then
can edit the melodies in staff notation.
New UPDATE after Schladming conference
The file DEMO.SM and and the PIEPS-Programs contained some mista-
kes. Since they are corrected you should perhaps ask for a new
version. In this case please send us your discette!
Short overview on the single routines
There are certain rules for all programs depicted below which one
can look up in special manuals (most in German at present). One
should principally know that the project(s) were developed to
ICTM STUDY GROUP: INFO * 27 * p. 9
store and retrieve any information in databases which is based on
one-part melodies belonging to a 12-tone system (not necessarily
a tempered one).
ESAC (Essen Associative Code) can be input or typed by any key-
board (cf. the respective "rules"!)
Here is a short overview on the single routines:
PIEPS (fn.ft) plays the melody for "proofreading"
SYNTAX (fn.ft) examines any document for formal mistakes (allowed
encodings, lengths etc.)
PLAY (fn.ft) automatically "translates" melodies played by an
electronic instrument into ESAC. It contains an editor
for corrections, division of phrases, triplets etc. *)
MAMMUT (fn.ft) has 12 additive options to analyse the melody and
lists them with the original data in a new input file.
TRANSL translates STAIR-formats into AskSam-formats and vice ver-
se.
TONARTEN demonstrates different scales (temperaments).
NOTE translates ESAC melodies into input Record files for Version
1.35 of "Personal Composer" which enables you to print
the melody in staff notation. This also works with la-
ter versions.
With the program goes a MAPPET user's guide (22 pages, up to now
only in German language).
Hardware used
Compilations of the programs run on any IBM-XT (AT) or compati-
ble. If you want to use a synthesizer (for PLAY or PIEPSYN), you
need also a Roland Midi-Interface including the MIDI chip
(MPU-IPC).
Commercial Software used
STAIRS/CMS database system implemented in the mainframe (IBM 4381
under VM/CMS)
AskSAM database system for the Micro. Version 4.2
PC (Personal Composer, version 2.0) used only for translation of
ESAC into staff notation. (see. NOTE)
Turbo-PASCAL (version 5.0)
PL/I mainframe version of Essen University Computer Center
--------------------
*) You must have a MIDI-interface and a Synthesizer to start
this!
----
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End of Music-Research Digest