简体中文
EnglishHow Measuring Polyphony Encodes and Presents Medieval Music
Updated
Measuring Polyphony publishes digital encodings of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century polyphonic music in mensural notation, linking each transcription to high-resolution manuscript images and MIDI audio files where possible. It is aimed at performers, scholars, and the general public who want to encounter this repertoire in its original notational context rather than through modern print editions. The encodings use the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) standard, a machine-readable format that makes the music data searchable and analysable.
What the project actually does
The site describes its purpose as presenting "digitisations of polyphonic compositions copied in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts in mensural notation," connected directly to manuscript images and MIDI audio. Three stated goals frame the work:
- Make transcriptions and audio freely available online alongside images of the original manuscripts.
- Encode the medieval notation in a standardised machine-readable format so the music data can potentially be searched or analysed.
- Serve performers, scholars, and the general public rather than a single specialist audience.
The project began when director Karen Desmond was at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and continues at Brandeis University.
Why mensural notation matters here
Almost all polyphonic music composed between 1300 and 1600 is notated in mensural notation — a system for notating rhythmic duration whose rules changed little after about 1350. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a sharp rise in manuscripts transmitting music across new styles, genres, and subject matter, copied both in music-only anthologies and in mixed collections that interweave song, text, and illuminations.
Modern print editions create distance from that original experience in two ways: they translate the original notation into modern notation, and they sort the repertoire according to print conventions such as volumes or series ordered by composer, genre, or country. Measuring Polyphony works against both effects by keeping the mensural notation and the manuscript context in view.
How the encoding and presentation work together
The mechanism is straightforward in principle: encode the notation in MEI, then bind that encoding to the source image and to a sounding realisation.
| Layer | What it provides |
|---|---|
| MEI encoding | Machine-readable representation of the mensural notation, following community-based standards |
| Manuscript images | High-resolution images of the original sources, linked where possible |
| MIDI audio | A listening reference tied to the encoded composition |
Because the notation is encoded rather than merely photographed or re-typeset, the music data can potentially be searched or analysed — a capability that page images alone do not offer.
Navigating the site
The site's menu points to Browse, Transcribe, and About, with the About section covering the project description, team, advisory board, acknowledgments, repertoire, encoding process, website design, GitHub, downloads, editorial decisions, known issues, future plans, and feedback. If you want to inspect or reuse the data, the GitHub and Downloads entries are the places to start; if you want to understand editorial choices behind a transcription, the editorial decisions and known issues pages are the relevant ones.
What to keep in mind
The project describes its transcriptions and audio as freely available online, but the source material does not state terms for reuse of the encodings beyond the presence of a GitHub repository and downloads section. Check those pages directly before republishing or building on the data. Also note the qualifier "where possible" on image links: not every composition is guaranteed a linked manuscript image.