Music and Metadata: The Musiconis Database and FAB-Musiconis Project

Susan Boynton, Department of Music (Columbia University)

Musiconis (http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/en/) is a metabase that analyzes medieval

visual representations of musical performances (instrumental musicians, singers,

and dancers) in art from the 8th to the 16th century imported from existing

databases, with the addition of music-related metadata. Musiconis came out of a

long-term project that involved both music historians and art historians.

In 2016, Columbia joined the Paris team for FAB-Musiconis, a three-year

transatlantic exchange involving graduate students and faculty. Graduate student

participants learned how to create and edit records in the Musiconis metabase; an

engineer improved functionality in real time during working sessions. The

Columbia University Libraries supported the project through excellent seminars on

metadata, digital humanities seminars, guidance on learning outcomes, and access

to spaces and collections.

“Representation of Sound and Music in the Middle Ages” (2011-15, Paris)

collaborative project supported by the French National Research Agency

Fundamental objectives

1 / creation of a meta-database of images representing medieval music

2 / conceptualization of theoretical tools for a new indexing model, starting point for research on the subject of

the representation of the sound, and the place and function of sound in Medieval culture

Original indexing system

1. Import basic information extracted from partner databases: Location, date, century, url, technique, material, accession number, etc.

2. Add musicological & iconological elements:● A / Organology, playing and singing techniques

● B / Analogies and sound characteristics, as a result of iconographic analysis (symbolic interpretation

of images rooted in earlier studies and articulated with the results of the research team).

Musiconis now includes 2200 performances in which are analyzed more than 2300

musicians and 2700 instruments (from 58 separate instruments belonging to 4 families).

Musiconis: Representation of Sound and Music in the Middle Ages

FAB-Musiconis: 2016-19 (Columbia University and Paris-Sorbonne University

Bilingual Musiconis database: http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/en/

Query:

Angel playing a harp

Medieval instrumentarium in images

4 families & 29 instruments (in Musiconis)

1. Aerophones (12)

2. Cordophones (12)

3. Membranophones (3)

4. Idiophones (2)

Aerophones (1/4)

Shawm, Bagpipe, Pipe

Modern

organological

feature

Aerophones (2/4)

Horn, Cornet, Trumpet, Sackbut

Modern organological feature

Aerophones (3/4)

Flute, Double flute, panpipes,

Modern

organological

feature

Aerophones (4/4)

Organ

Modern reconstruction

Cordophones 1/5

Lute & gittern

Modern reconstruction

Modern reconstruction

Cordophones 2/5

Harp, Lyre, Crwth

Modern reconstruction

Modern reconstruction

Cordophones 3/5 Monocord & dulcimer

Cordophones 4/5

Psaltery & Rote, Vielle à roue (Organistrum)

Cordophones 5/5

Vièle, Rebec, Viole

Membranophones

Bedon, Rommelpot, Tabor

Idiophones

Bells & Triangle

Existing partnerships:

Gothic Ivories Project (The Courtauld Institute of Art) – Image database of carved ivory objects

Initiale (IRHT)- Medieval illuminated manuscripts

Musicastallis (Université Paris-Sorbonne) -Musicians and singers in choirstalls from all over Europe

Romane (CESCM de Poitiers)- Romanesque sculpture and painting

Sculpture (Centre André Chastel) – Architectural sculpture from French cathedrals

Vitrail (Centre André Chastel) – Image database of stained glass from French cathedrals

Metropolitan Museum of Art - Digital image collections of the Metropolitan Museum (added in 2019 by FAB-Musiconis )

Partnerships in the planning or proposal stage:

Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University - iconography database, currently subscription-only access

Pierpont Morgan Library – open-access database of medieval illuminated manuscripts

Partner databases

Example of a record from the Gothic Ivories database

Musiconis record with iconclass metadata for the scene

Musiconis record: performer metadata for 3 instruments

Origin of new records: Spreadsheet of medieval musical scenes in the Metropolitan Museum

Record on metmuseum.org does not fully describe the instruments in the scene

From the Metropolitan Museum website, basic metadata from the collection database

Musiconis record for the same manuscript leaf from the Metropolitan Museum

Performance classification of the scene in the Musiconis metabase

FAB-Musiconis: 2016-19 (Columbia University and Paris-Sorbonne University

Editing a sceneEx : http://musiconis.huma-

num.fr/student/fr/fiche/1324/839.html

Geonames ID : 2988507 (MAP)

Siècle : 0

Dates : Empty - Empty

Notation Iconclass : Empty

Performateur, Instrument, Nombre de

performateurs

Autres fiches

http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/student/fr/fiche/39/roi-

david-accordant-une-harpe.html

http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/student/fr/fiche/68/roi-

david-accordant-sa-harpe.html

Références à la théorie et à la perfection musicale :

accordage, loi mathématique divine :

Univers référentiel du son : musique de la Loi,

musique savante

Obs : le roi David semble écouter l'accord pour régler au

mieux l'instrument. La parole de Dieu est marquée comme

musicale par l'intervention de David accordant la harpe.

En ligne ?

FAB-Musiconis indexing workshops New York April-May 2019

Indexing session

studio@butler

(2018)

Login into Musiconis: http://musiconis-dev.huma-num.fr/login

login: student

password: etudiant2017

Wiki: http://musiconis-wiki.huma-num.fr/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin

login: FabMusiconis

password: FabMusiconis19

Database: what to index

In order for a record to be published online in Musiconis, there are 6 principal

fields to verify:

1. Title in French and Title in English

2. Locations (current & original)

3. Century + Date

4. Technique

5. Material

6. Performance : musician + instrument (if relevant)

Optional fields to be indexed are located in the Sound section:

1. Sound function

2. Reference to music theory and musical perfection

3. Source of musical inspiration

4. Instrumental classification

5. Referential framework of the sound

Wiki: architecture & tools (templates, queries, properties, special pages)

Why this wiki?

● Started as an explanatory tool for Fab Musiconis

● Is now a teaching tool for first year Musicology students at Sorbonne University (&

may be implemented for master students who will become middle and high school teachers, as medieval

music is part of the national curriculum)

● Growing importance in the project though LOD features (images from Musiconis,

HSI/Mimo inputs, wikidata, etc.)

● Will be connected to DB. Ex: instrument definitions

Wiki: architecture

Instrument

Performer

Sound

Horn

Angel

Celestial

music

Our objective is to

provide definitions for

all these

interconnected

notions.

Eventually, Database

and Wiki will be

connected to each

other semantically,

while remaining 2

separate tools.

EntriesProperties

Categories

Wiki: categories

Each of the pages in the Category namespace represents a so-called category, a grouping of related pages, and

contains an index for the pages of its category. If you open the category page, you will see a link to this page

there. EX: "Category:Instrument"

To add a page or uploaded file to a category, simply edit the page and add the following text (where Name is the

name of the category you want to add it to).

[[Category: Name]]

Wiki: properties

Properties are the basic way of entering

semantic data in Semantic MediaWiki.

Properties can be viewed as «categories for

values in wiki pages».

They are used by a simple markup, similar to the

syntax of links in MediaWiki:

[[Property name::property value]]

Properties have types. By default -> Pages

Examples of types● Page - Holds names of wiki pages, and

displays them as a link● Boolean - Holds boolean (true/false)

values● Date - Holds particular points in time● Email - Holds e-mail addresses● Monolingual text - Holds a text value

that associates the annotation with a specific language code

● Number - Holds integer and decimal numbers, with an optional exponent

● URL - Holds URIs/URLs● Reference - Holds a value that associates

it to individual defined provenance metadata record (important for wikidata)

Wiki: tools -> special pages

From MediaWiki

● Uncategorized files

● Uncategorized pages

● Unused files

● Unused properties

● All pages

● Properties

● Search

● File list

● List of files with duplicates

Semantic MediaWiki Only

● Browse wiki

● Property label similarity report

● Search by property

● Semantic MediaWiki Graph

● Semantic search

Selecting pagesThe following queries show what this means:

1. [[Family::+]] gives all pages that have any family annotated.

2. [[Is played by::Angel]] gives all pages of instruments being played by angels.

3. [[Has interlanguage link.Page content language::en]] gives all pages annotated as being written in

English

We can also combine those requirements:

{{#ask:

[[Family::+]] [[Is played by::Angel]] [[Has interlanguage link.Page content

language::en]]

}}

Wiki: tools -> inline queries

Wiki: tools -> inline queries

Examples of queries and result lists are available in the Sandbox

Parser function #ask

The basic way of writing an inline query is to use the parser function #ask. The query

string and any printout statements are directly given as parameter, like in the following

example:

== Modern instruments =={{#ask: [[Category: Reconstitution]]|?Has instrument}}

Wiki: tools -> queries

● Examples of queries and result lists are available in the Sandbox

To build a query, you may use the Semantic search special page:

Wiki: tools -> templates

Semantic templates are a method of including the markup that Semantic MediaWiki introduces through MediaWiki templates. This

has several advantages:

● users can specify annotations without learning any new syntax

● annotations are used consistently, i.e. users do not have to look for the right properties or categories when editing a page

● infobox-style templates provide data structure, by defining which values belong in which pages

● infobox-style templates also often provide a nice display for the data

Wiki: tools -> templates

New features this spring

New Semantic Result Formats extension

Semantic Result Formats is an extension to extension "Semantic MediaWiki" that adds a large number of further result formats,

including formats for calendars, timelines, charts, graphs and mathematical functions. The result formats can be used in inline

queries and other semantic searches. Examples available in the Sandbox.

Indexing images in the wiki

[[Category : Performance]]

[[Has description :: Musicien jouant

d'une flûte ou d'un instrument à

anche, musicien-équilibriste jouant

de la vièle, équilibriste tenant une

épée et jongleur de couteaux]]

'''Date'''

[[Has date :: 1111]]

'''Instrument(s)'''

[[Has instrument :: Lute]]

[[Has instrument :: Viele]]

[[Has instrument :: Shawm]]

'''Performer'''

''Type(s):''

[[Has performer type :: Acrobat]]

[[Has performer type :: Musician]]

[[Has performer type :: Juggler]]

''Genre''

[[Has genre :: Man]]

''Sound''

[[Sound function :: accompaniment]]

[[Sound function :: engenderment of the

letter]]

----

[[URL :: http://musiconis.huma-

num.fr/fr/fiche/178/musicien]]

Database

Previous workshop descriptions : Winter 2019 + Hackaton 2018

Presentation on instrumentarium from Winter 2019

References, online and print:

○ Instruments médievaux : reference for medieval organology (in FR)

○ Oxford Music Online: via Columbia via Sorbonne

○ CNRTL (lexicography)

○ Marin Mersenne, Harmonie Universelle

○ Dictionnaire de musique, Rousseau (1768)

○ Dictionnaire de musique, Brossard (1703)

Resources

RBML manuscript session with Alexis Hagadorn, Vasare Rastonis, Consuelo Dutschke

Pop-up concert in the Music and Arts Library, during a project reception and presentation

2019 FAB-Musiconis participant Jenna Schoen presenting her digital humanities project in studio@butler

2018 participant Mark Saccomano presenting research at the Princeton University DH Center

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the Columbia University Libraries for their generous support of FAB-Musiconis!

We are very grateful to the following people for their contributions to the project in 2016-2019:

Lucy Appert

Eamonn Bell

Amber Billey

Elizabeth Davis

Consuelo Dutschke

Paula Gabbard

Alex Gil

Alexis Hagadorn

Andre Laboy

Jennifer Lee

Russell Merritt

Nick Patterson

Vasare Rastonis

Barbara Rockenbach

Melanie Wacker

Jeffrey Wayno