OCVE London Workshop, 26 October 2004

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Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London Kay House, 7 Arundel Street, London

List of participants

Musicological Team

  • John Rink (leader)
  • Paul Banks
  • Nicholas Cook
  • Cliff Eisen
  • Jim Samson
  • Danae Stefanou

Technical Team

  • Marilyn Deegan (leader)
  • John Bradley
  • Paul Vetch
  • Julia Craig-McFeely
  • Tim Crawford

Timetable

Tuesday 26 October 2004

10.00-10.30Coffee, welcome and introductions
10.30-11.15Musicological developments: John Rink and Danae Stefanou
11.15-12.30 Technical developments: Marilyn Deegan, Harold Short, John Bradley, Paul Vetch
12.30-13.00 Plenary discussion
13.00-13.30Lunch (on site)
13.30-15.15 Breakout groups: technical and musicological
15.00-16.00Report back from groups, future planning, general discussion
16.00Tea and farewells

Workshop Reports

Musicological Report

Advantages of the Online Variorum

A key question concerns the features specific to this online variorum edition that make it stand apart from printed editions or other resources:

  • Easy access to sources as chief priority;
  • Providing the feasibility and technology for all users to create their own editions, whether electronically (in due course) or on paper;
  • Search and other functions that enable the user to extract and analyse information in the way he/she wants, or to compare work with that of other scholars.

Suggested improvements in presentation and delivery

  • Annotations: asterisks for each annotation are distracting. It would be preferable to have a mouse-over function whereby one could see all the annotation categories and right-click on the appropriate one. Moreover, a printable version of all annotations, source details etc. should be made available.
  • Phrasing: each phrase could be marked as a unit, hence e.g. the element ‘phrase 1–18’ could refer to a phrase starting in b. 1 and ending in b. 18.
  • Showing more of each page, including edges etc., and including the title page of each piece.
  • Image-size toggle function could enhance usability, but is currently impossible due to inconsisent staff sizes across sources.
  • Browser technology limitations. A full-scale online variorum might ultimately provide scholars with the opportunity to download the necessary software for viewing and handling the score, e.g. in order to click and drag large sections. Also, a CD-Rom version might in some ways be more functional than an online resource in itself.

Potential developments for subsequent phases

  • Moving further than just piano music by including chamber and orchestral scores, where the challenge would be in enabling the user to view an entire orchestral score electronically.
  • Inclusion of recordings, accessible through the navigation bar. This can be a parallel project in conjunction with CHARM. The Chopin Mazurkas are already included in CHARM research, and would thus form a good example. CCH could therefore develop the CHARM alongside the work within Phase 2 of OCVE. Progress in this area has also been made by other projects (e.g. Nicolas Donin and colleagues at IRCAM, whereby an algorithm has been developed for extracting attack information from historical recordings).

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