Ollie Cargill’s MCA Project: Medieval Music

Week 1: Basics of Music Data

Some issues that can arise when working with medieval music and its data can be preservation and accessibility. Preservation is especially relevant to medieval music, particularly concerning access to manuscripts. Handwritten manuscripts from the medieval period can be fragile, tattered and often elusive due to deterioration over time. Solutions to this include good preservation practises which can mitigate further degradation, and restoration methods. Digitising the manuscripts is a solution for both preservation and accessibility, as in a digital form, the manuscripts are easier to analyse as there is no risk of damage to the original copy. In terms of accessibility, digitised manuscripts can be uploaded to an online archive and therefore can be widely accessible. Medieval music is presently curated in manuscript form in archives, museums and databases. These online archives and databases contain metadata about the manuscript (some of this metadata is estimated because information is lost through time) like place of writing, time period of production, the contents of the manuscript, the archive where the physical manuscript is held, the dimensions of the manuscripts and so on. The DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music) is an example of an online database for medieval music information and digitised manuscripts.

Medieval music exists in score form, however original works are not easily accessible due to their age and state. Scores I will use for my project will be digital via MuseScore and will be newer transcriptions based on the original works. IMSLP is an example of a good online source. Early medieval music sometimes had no score attatched to it, as the music was typically monophonic chants. Later medieval music adopted polyphony (organum) and thus written scores were more prevelant, however the notation is very simplistic compared to today’s typical western music notation. This is because medieval notation was primarily concerned with the notes being played, thus a time signature or barlines for example (which we would consider essential today), were absent. IMSLP has many examples of what medieval scores look like.

Much metadata about medieval music has been lost through time. Therefore, elements of metadata like place and date of publication for example are usually estimated. Sometimes, original authors and composers are unknown, or very little is known about them. Finding metadata on medieval music can be challenging. IMSLP provides as much as it can, and I researched some composers of the pieces I will be using in this portfolio. Leonin is an example of a medieval composer of organum who I researched when looking at metadata. Only his first name is known, and historians can only estimate his date of birth and even what nationality he might have been.

You can find audio recordings of medieval works online. Archive.org is an example of a site where you can find royalty-free music or samples. Obviously there are no original audio recordings from the time period, only relatively recent recordings based on the original scores.