Irish Music Digital Library A collection of traditional Irish tunes
Katie Harris ~ Mary Malone ~ Kallie NordengrenVillanova University December 5, 2006
Introduction
• In the Ireland, dance music was an aural tradition – it was learned “by ear”
• There are literally thousands of tunes.
• Only a few published collections of transcribed tunes exist and over the past 15 years several web sites have been developed that attempt to transcribe and save the tunes in a written form.
Project Goals
• The goal of this digital library is to collect and preserve some of the tunes – mostly ones played in sessions in the Philadelphia, PA area.
Photo courtesy of http://www.irishphiladelphia.com
Project GoalsMany tunes in this collection are ones that are played in local sessions by Kevin McGillian, a musician from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, who has lived in this area since the early 1950’s.
Photo courtesy of http://www.irishphiladelphia.com
Space model
Society model Scenariomodel
Structuremodel
Streammodel
DL ManagerGeneral public
TaxonomiesMetadata
Content ProviderRepository building
Value added
Domain specific
Format
Attributes
User interface Metric space
Traditional Irish Music DL *Tune type Graphics/Audio/abc file
Text-txt, doc Audio- mp3 Sheet Music-gif Other- abc
5S Diagram
Streams
• Text– What is Irish Music?
• Audio– Mp3 format– Midi format
• Abc– Language used to notate and store tunes in ASCII
format
• Graphic– Gif’s-sheet music
abc Music Notation
• abc is a language designed in 1991 by Chris Walshaw from University of Greenwich in London, England.
• It was developed primarily for notating folk and traditional tunes which can be written in one stave in standard classical notation.
• Many software tools now exist to read .abc files and process them.
abc exampleT:Paddy O'Rafferty C:Trad. M:6/8 K:D dff cee|def gfe|dff cee|dfe dBA|dff cee|def gfe|faf gfe|1 dfe dBA:|2 dfe dcB|] ~A3 B3|gfe fdB|AFA B2c|dfe dcB|~A3 ~B3|efe efg|faf gfe|1 dfe dcB:|2 dfe dBA|]fAA eAA|def gfe|fAA eAA|dfe dBA|fAA eAA|def gfe|faf gfe|dfe dBA:|
example from: http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/
Structures
• Metadata– Irish music DL
• Tune type– Graphics– Audio midi (mp3 if recording was available)– abc formatted files– Citations are included for each notated tune, and a
separate citation was included if a recording was available.
Spaces
• User interface
• Metric space
Scenarios
• Add items
• Build repository
• Searching – title, composer and other subject keywords
• Selecting and viewing/listening/saving musical notation, audio files or .abc files
Societies
• General public– People interested in traditional Irish tunes
played in Philadelphia– Anyone interested in Irish tunes
• Content providers– Katie, Mary, and Kallie (for now)
• DL manager– Katie, Mary, and Kallie (administrators)
Quality Indicators
• Consistency
• Reliability
• Efficiency
• Accuracy
• Completeness
Rights Management Issues
• All data was acquired from sources that are in the public domain.
• Citations were provided as requested by sources that made data freely available.
• Due to copyrights, not many recent recordings were available.
Contents of the Collection
For every tune in the collection, this DL contains:
1. An .abc file
2. The graphical musical notation or sheet music
3. A midi audio file – so the user can quickly hear how the tune sounds
4. And if available in the public domain, a recording of Irish musicians playing the tune
Resources
Resources from which the data was collected:• The session traditional Irish music exchange on
http://www.thesession.org• JC's ABC Tune Match [tunefind] on
http://www.trillian.mit.edu• The O’Neill’s Project on
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/book/oneills/1850/• Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project on
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/overview.php • The Roots Music Listening Room Irish Dance Music
from the 1920’s – 1970’s on http://juneberry78s.com/sounds/ListenToIrishDance.htm
• An Maindilin – Irish tunes on mandolin on http://www.paythereckoning.com/thepage.htm
Organization
• The collection is organized by tune type – which is associated with a type of dance.
• A user can search for tunes through title, composer or keyword, such as key signature.
Issues
Loading the Data:– The files that were uploaded to the DL were
collected from several different websites. Loading the data and creating citations was laborious – as the websites have no standards for harvesting data.
– Need for Dspace backup is crucial - during the process of reorganizing the collection following semester break, all of the data entered was accidentally deleted and had to be reentered.
Behind the Scenes
• Dspace:– Created a digital library using Dspace– Learned to submit items to collections in a digital
library– Learned how to utilize functions available by Dspace
(Browse, Search, etc.)
• Manakin:– Created a theme and modified XML/JSP code to
change various aspects of layout.– Learned how to install Manakin alongside Dspace to
create a more unique front-end for user.
Dspace
• Install/Configure Dspace to create a digital library– Relationship between Dspace/Tomcat
• Created collections under community for different types of Irish tunes
• Then started submitting tunes in different collections
• Set up different key words in tunes to enable the search feature
Manakin• Install/Configure Manakin
– patch Dspace– place edited config files in Dspace directory (xmlui.xml,
context.xml, server.xml)– create theme for site (using CSS style sheet, JSPs, and
XML files)– apply theme to site (aspect.xml)
• Less documentation for Manakin– had to utilize the dspace-manakin mailing list at
SourceForge• Themes in Manakin provide a more unique look and feel
while maintaining a separation of concerns.
General demo
• Demo on how to utilize the Irish Music Digital Library
• A user needs to download and pay for the software to process tunes in abc format
• http://www.abc2win.com
• http://www.norbeck.nu/abcmus/
• Many packages available…
Project Upgrades
• Added Manakin Interface• Database backup• Reorganized into 12 separate collections by tune
type.• Added descriptions for each type.• Added “What is Traditional Irish Music?”• Added 62 additional tunes• Additional metadata
– Citations and Publishers for each tune– Keywords added for search – recording,
performers, instruments, sources– Citations for each recording
What’s to come?
• For the future…– Links to media players and abc packages– Enlarge collection items– Enable harvesting– Enhance Manakin in order to stylize all major
aspects of DL.
Conclusion
• Now have a working digital library enabling users to search a collection of Irish tunes that are regularly played in the Philadelphia area.
• examples of sheet music, listen to a tune with a media player or use .abc software
ANY QUESTIONS?