A. Text as determined by modern editor (that is, corresponding to the base text presented in the musical edition)

B. Text as “presented” in chansonnier, that is, already interpreted via certain types of division, repetition, prolongation.

C. Text as it appeared in some sixteenth-century literary (non musical) source, which might or might not correspond to the “musical” treatment

D. Views that could highlight differences, such:

E. Ways in which the “musical” poem departs from printed ones (like variants, or extra verses)

F. Ways in which the musical poem departs among the individual voice parts (orthography or punctuation, or wording)

G. Views that could highlight similarities, such as:

1. Poems that cite each other, perhaps in connection with music that does likewise

2. Patterns of circulation for the text, in all its forms:

H. Within a anthology of other settings

I. Citation or quotation (in another musical setting)

J. Rival settings

K. Additional verses

Different users will want to use the sites in different ways.  It’s important for us to recognize that there will be different levels of expertise, and different interests—from students (intermediate as well as advanced) to scholars (in literary studies, digital humanities, as well as musicologists) to performers.  Some will simply want finished editions.  Others will want to get involved in the reconstructions.  Still others want might want to look at variant readings or undertake studies of style and influence.

So here is a model of the ‘levels’ of permission and authority:

Owners (who maintain the site, and hold the copyright)
Editors (who are responsible for the big policies and questions)
Contributors (who send in essays or reconstructions)
Correspondents (who can ask questions or make comments on particular pieces)
Viewers (anyone)

2. Nouvelles sur nouvelles.

We want to move beyond a static archive and instead towards an interactive model of collaborative inquiry.  We thus need ways to announce new content, or new conversations.  We also need to find ways for users to follow this news, and for them to find each other.  The “news” function is important for sustaining interest in the site during the inevitable gaps and silences between launch of new material.  We thus need announcements that report on what we are doing, and what is coming up.  (For instance, announcement about a grant, about the Med-Ren meeting, about the Ecole thematique, etc).

We could also use this public space as a way of encouraging users (individual scholars, or perhaps a professor and students) to edit some pieces or propose a reconstruction.  We could, for instance, make a suggestion about something to discuss, or a challenging piece for reconstruction.  We could make announcements about a group of students who are seeking someone else for collaboration.

3.  Documentation is a key part of all digital humanities projects.

We need to provide a written record of the steps we have taken (even discussions like this one!).  We also need document our editorial and encoding methods.  These records are a crucial part of what we have promised granting agencies. They will be an important part of securing future funding.  It will also be crucial for us to have clear methods we attempt to collaborate—whether with scholars who want to contribute something to our projects or to those like the ELVIS project who want to make use of our data.

Thus we are likely to need two ‘spaces’–one private, the other public:

a.  The decisions taken by the advisory board and technical team.

b. A clear set of editorial standards.

4.  Verwandlungsmusik.

Our end users are unlikely to be able to use MEI, or even learn it.  We will in any case still need to produce engraved PDFs for performers, and still need to use Sibelius and Finale to distribute and gather reconstructions from contributors.  We also have members of the CMME community to work with.  Can we hire consultants to produce tools for transformation from one format to the other?

The MEI team is making excellent progress on tools for encoding and displaying music.  They expect to launch a viewer/encoder in May of 2012.  It is very important for us to document our standards so that our files will be easily converted into MEI standard.

How, exactly, will we treat variants and reconstructions in our Sibelius editions or our CMME encodings?  What happens to this information when we export data as Music XML and then MEI?  What happens when we export a CMME file with ‘variants’ as MusicXML or MEI?  What happens when we “add” a voice with Sibelius, then try to incorporate it into a CMME file for display?  What happens to musica ficta and other editorial accidentals in he transformation process?

5.  Citation/juxtaposition.

As part of our workshop for reconstructions, we want to “point” between and among related pieces.  We also want to make connections between the elements in our Thesaurus (like a cadential figure) and corresponding passages in pieces we have reconstructed.

Can the MEI team suggest specific ways to do any of this?  Can we document the practice?  Eventually these could be rendered in some dynamic way on screen.  For now we would be satisfied with pointers to fixed images of the Thesaurus figures, which would be organized in some systematic way.

Note that the Shakespeare Quartos Archive allows users to juxtapose different readings or editions. and allows them to annotate what they find.  There is also a way to save the annotations!

See the Shakespeare Quartos Archive for some great tools and tutorials on how to use them.  They allow users to ‘collect’ passages and put them side by side.  Also registered users can keep their annotations:

www.quartos.org/

www.quartos.org/lib/Diff/compare.html

6. Developing the Community.

During the Barcelona Med-Ren meeting I started to keep a list of scholars interested in the AVRP and Du Chemin.

Jessie Rodin [Josquin Project.]

Luca Bruno [Naples.  Great presentation on Santa Maria and Villanesche]

Philippe Canguilhem  [Toulouse.  Interesting work on Lusitano and improvisation-composition]

Ann Smith [Basel Schola Cantorum]

Robert Kendrick (Chicago—he is already using Du Chemin with his students)

Wolfgang Fuhrmann (Vienna.  Expressed interest in missing voice part from Petrucci motets]

Julie Cumming [Montreal.  Elvis project]

Peter Schubert [Montreal.  Elvis project]

Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl

Vladimir Prado [Vienna. Working on Digital editions of de Monte]

Thomas Schmidt-Beste [Bangor.  Working on new grant to catalog manuscripts and prints]

We also have our Advisory Board members.  I am not sure how many of them want to stay actively involved:

Jennifer Bloxam

Patrick Macey

Jennifer Thomas

Honey Meconi

Cynthia Cyrus

Carla Zecher (Newberry)

Erin Mayhood (UVA Library and MEI)

And a few others who had already expressed interest in Du Chemin and AVRP during the early months of 2011.

Stefano Mengozzi

Vassiliki Koutsobina

Jeanice Brooks

David Crook

Erika Honisch

Technical Consultants:

Craig Sapp (Stanford)

Andrew Hankinson (McGill)

Raffaele Vigliante (London)

Ichiro Fujinaga (McGill)

May 28 2010

General

1. I have replaced the titles with the incipits as found in the contents table. However, this brings the problem that the spelling is often at variance with the spelling found in the music. In these cases I have followed the music and noted the discrepancies below.

RF:  This is tricky, since we said that we would follow the table of contents in the naming of the pieces.  What is the policy for the Basse de données on the CESR web site?  And in our table of contents pages for the Du Chemin system?

2. Richard has stated a preference for 2^nd time text to be placed on the lower line. I’ve no objection, but it’s a lot of work, as I have done them all on the first line! What do other editions do? The trouble is, the format has to be “settled” before you do this; otherwise, each time the system division changes location, you are going to have to reformat.

I will keep them as they are for the moment and leave it to you and Vincent to decide. The only problem is that when you go on to the next system the line has to revert the upper line. This is tricky as the system change keeps changing accord as the format changes. So for the moment I have left it as it is and Vincent can change it after the final format has been established. But maybe this should be reconsidered?  See my further remarks below, at II,21.

RF:   This is a very small detail of layout, although I agree that it would be best for things to be consistent.  I would suggest that _just_ the last syllable of the second line be moved lower, so that the singer will see it in relation to the second verse.  The _remainder_ of the text in that voice part (that is, after the second ending) can revert back to the normal position for single verses.  This is in any case what Du Chemin’s typesetters do.

3. It is often difficult to decide if 2 syllables separated by a gap make up one or two words. The typesetter does not use hyphens but leaves a gap between 2 syllables belonging to the same word.

Individual cases discussed below. My knowledge of old French is not sufficient for me to be completely sure. Maybe consult a dictionary of sixteenth-century French if one can be found?

RF:  I think the editor will need to use some judgment here, just as Du Chemin’s singers needed to.  What does the Fiala project do in such cases?   I agree that reference to a dictionary of old French might help.  What is our shared resource for Fiala and Freedman?  The big dictionary I know is Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizieme siecle (Champion, 1933ff).  But perhaps there is something newer, like the Chicago Artfl Project, and its Dictionnaire d’autrefois.

May 28 2010

II,1 Je me veulx tant.

Souffrir m’est doulz et mon mal j’estime heur. For the scansion, the final e of “estime” should be elided with “heur” (h is not aspirated).  Do you like my solution?

RF:  I assume you mean in mm 22-23 and 28-9, you are delaying both me and heur to the last note.  I agree that this seems a more regular 4+6 syllable line.

II,2 Vous me changez

Last word. I made “serf-vice” into one word. In the print there is a small gap after the “f”, so I made it two words. But elsewhere the printer often leaves a small gap and no hyphen between 2 syllables belonging to the same word. I think it is obviously to be considered one word.

RF:  Yes, seems reasonable, although I wonder if there is some kind of word play with earlier line on “service” (no f in this case).  That would rule against the hyphen.

II,5 Un fin Mary, bar 27ff.

Here “à” is used for third person singular present tense of “avoir”. If we automatically put an accent on “à” as preposition, should we not leave it off if it means “has”? I have changed it to “a”.

RF:  We have said we’d add accents to avoid ambiguity, and also to expand abbreviations, both without further comment.  I agree that it would be “a” (no accent).  Just put the change in the report, I think.

II,5 Un fin Mary

“Ha ha mon mary”, bars 39ff and 49ff: On reflection, I don’t think this qualifies as patter or nonsense, so I have punctuated it as a normal repetition, supplying commas between each “Ha”: “Ha, Ha mon mary…” (Without repeats, “Ha mon mary”)

RF:  I have come to the conclusion that we must treat patter in the same way we do all other repetition.  Otherwise we will be forced to decide what is patter and what is not.  I think the only situation in one would not add comma for repetition might be when the repetition was _internal_ to the verse structure (that is, two ‘Ha’s” as part of a ten-syllable line.  Here, at any rate, is what we say in the Editorial Guidelines about repetitions:

• Punctuation for text repetitions (either indicated in the source or based on editorial suggestions) follows this rule:  the first statement of a line or part of a line is separated from the repetition by a comma.  Subsequent repetitions are also separated from each other by a comma.  There is no additional comma between the repetition and the continuation of the line to which it belongs.  The original punctuation (whether comma, colon, or period) appears at the end of the text of that line.

II,10 Or my doint.

The spelling of the title in the table has “doinbt” while the S, Ct and T have “doint”.

For the opening line, the B begins: “Or dieu mi Donne”, probably a misprint. I have replaced it and put a footnote.

Bar 9. I hesitate between “m’envoys and “m’en voys”. (I am not sure what it means: “I part”? “I am sent away?”). On the Ricercar site it is “m’en voys” but I have my doubts. In the books, B and T have a system breaks between “en” and “voys”, S and CT spell as one word (no gap between syllables). I have revised it as “m’envoys”. Do we know what was 16^th-century usage?

RF:  Our tables follow Du Chemin’s tables.  Our editions follow his texts.  This is a riddle, I know, but not sure how we can fix it, since the former are part of our electronic system.    Yes, emend the Bassus text, but I would say in this case put it in [  ] and make a note.  We say we fix orthography silently, but not whole words.   I would think that the presence of the abbreviation suggests one word, as does the general musical gesture, which ties the whole set together acoustically anyway.    Note:  Huguet explains ‘envoyer’ as a verb used to send a request for assistance.  That’s the sense of this usage, since the speaker applies to all loyal ones, from his condition of sadness.

II,11 Ho le meschant

“Nonsense” syllables issues :

Opening repetitions of “meschant” and “villain”: “meschant meschant” and “villain villain”: no comma added.

I am punctuating the text repetitions within the line “Et ne vault plus en bon latin” as “Et ne vault plus en bon latin, Et ne vault plus en bon latin, en bon en bon latin” — note commas after “latin” but no comma between the 2 appearances of “en bon”. Source has no punctuation separating repeats of line or bits of text within line.

RF:  This is really one of those places where we smack our heads against our own rules.  The stuttering effect of the repetitions I think is _meant_ to exaggerate the difference between this manner of speach and ‘good latin’.  But we have said in our ‘rules’ that we add commas for all internal repetitions, even when Du Chemin does not.  It is quite variable in the sources, and David Fiala tells me that his colleagues in the BVH project simply shrugged at the question of commas, since they are highly arbitrary in any case.  Where meaning breaks down, as it does here, I think we can say that our system breaks down, too!

II,12 Au feu

T, opening line: I have tried to improve the text underlay.

RF:  It is an odd line.  How good a composer was Martin?!

II,13 Cupido.

Title in index has “appetiz” but all 4 voices in music have “appetitz”

RF:  As above, we are stuck.

II,15 Dieu doinbt.

Contents table gives spelling “Dieu doinbt le bonjour” with “b” in “doinbt” and “bonjour” looking like one word. In the voice parts, it is “doint” in all 4, and in all 4 there is a clear space between “bon” and “jour”. However, this does not necessarily mean we should interpret it as 2 words. So in the transcription I have added a hyphen: “bon-jour” to harmonise with the contents table.

RF:  OK.

II,16 Allons.

Bar 1, 2^nd time text, first word: = “Cependant” or “Ce pendant”? In the source it looks like “Ce pendant” in all 4 voices (gap after “Ce”, no gap in “pendant”), so I have left it as two words.

CT, bars 6-8: underlay?? (no repeat mark for “plaisanment”).

RF:  What does David F say?  Yes, I see only one repeat marks for plaisanment, so you can add the repetition in [ roman ].

II,17  Ce friant oeil

Title is “Ce friant œil” in contents table but “oeil” (oe not contracted) in parts.

Bar 6 “coeurs”: 2 of the voices have a contraction, 2 don’t. I have left it uncontracted.

Optional underlay suggestions, bar 10, T. Ok.

RF:  The title is just a question of typography, no?  I would leave it uncontracted throughout.

II,18 Je souffre passion

Bar 7-8, 44, S and T: is this better underlay?

bars 6 and 44, af-fe-ction. From now on I will split all words ending in “-ction” like this.

RF:  ct together is our new policy.  The underlay in 7-8 and 44 is another case of which rule broken first:  no syllables on small notes, or keep the melisma for the end?  Delaying ‘con-for’ has the plus of allowing simultaneous declamation with CT and B, which perhaps add rhetorical nuance to what’s being said (a wish for self- assurance that is reflected in the ‘wishful’ coordination).  Depends how you want to read it.

II,20 Qui souhaitez

“Souhaitez” spelt with one “t” in table, two in vocal parts.

Bar 12ff, “ex-em-ple” or “e-xem-ple”. Etymology suggests it should be “ex-em-ple” on the analogy with “des-es-poir” (“ex” being a prefix: Latin “ex” + “emere”).

Bass, bar 25ff, comma after “au” in phrase “c’est au Soleil”. This is clearly a mistake and doesn’t conform to 16^th-cent. usage. In any case, according to our majority rule, the comma disappears as it is not in the other voices.

23ff, CT: “Voller au ciel”. It makes sense if one assumes that the typesetter accidentally omitted a phrase:

RF:  More chaos with the database, since I think it is two different ways here too.  OK on word division.  Right reasoning with the comma.

What was meant to appear:

Voller au ciel, ij Voller au ciel

What actually appears:

ij Voller au ciel

I have assumed that ij refers to an omitted phrase “Voller au Ciel,”, not “audacieusement” (the word before), which does not fit.

According to my reckoning, the omitted phrase should appear in brackets, then there should be a phrase in italics (for the ij phrase), then one in roman. See also footnote. Do you agree?

RF: Yes, I think the typesetter went to lunch at this point.  Clearly the first instance is [roman].  And the last is just Roman, with no brackets.  The middle one must be editorial, since it’s not an expansion of anything the typesetter put there.  So [roman] too.  But if it slips through as italics, I don’t mind.

II,21 Qu’est il

15. Placement of “second time” text. Cf II,26, bar 17,same problem. Also II,17, bar 12 – and probably other places that we don’t know until the final formatting has been done.

Bar 16.3 ff, Superius: I have changed word underlay. I think it is better now.

Bar 32.3. Footnote concerning misplaced repeat sign. Isn’t this the sort of typesetter error that we should mention in the critical commentary (along with wrong length notes/rests etc.)? By the way, this is the only case I have so far found of a misplaced repeat sign.

RF:  I would just move ‘voir’ down at m 14 for the second time text.  The rest of the line is OK.  With Sibelius this is easy.  Delete one ‘voir’  then insert a Lyric2 and re-enter.  Right, don’t emend 16.3 S.    Yes, now I see your point about the repeat sign.  Sometimes they are not misplaced, but simply the voices have different amounts of text for the second ending.  Here the guy just misread the link point, perhaps because the tied SB threw him off (cannot easily return to the middle of a note!)

II,22 Margot

Bar 35.3. There’s no doubt the unprepared 4^th (T and B) is uncanonical. Is there some expressive justification for it? I don’t think so. I am fairly sure that it was unintended. Are we just going to leave it without suggesting an alternative?

To explain the issue a little more clearly, I have rewritten the commentary (see footnotes and commentaries).

RF:  Well, it’s a fairly crude poem, even by the standards of the day.  I would note the motivic connection between T m 35 and CT m 39, a correspondence that points out the word play at work between the two passages.  So on this grounds we might keep the lousy counterpoint.  No wonder the piece is anonymous.

II,23 La terre, l’eau

Table has “La terre l’eau” without comma. Voice parts all have comma.

Bar 37, canonical voice, E: = E flat ficta or real E flats? I have changed it to ficta: it should definitely be E flat, given the E flat in the bass. Also, it is a canon without exact replication of major and minor intervals, so probably the flat cannot be taken as “Gospel”, so needs to be shown as ficta.

RF:  OK on table, as we must check the Coeurdevey database.  I agree that it must be sung as E-flat.  Some canons, I suppose could be sung in transposition, and the singer would remember about the ‘fa’ simply as part of that.  But not in this piece, with it’s odd reversals and inversions.

II,24. Sur la verdure

I wasn’t sure of punctuation, because of the square brackets. I wanted to put the full stop somewhere, but where?

In the end I chose:

(for CT and T)

Quant vis qu’aul-tre d’el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant, [Quant vis qu'aul-tre d'el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant]. Sur la ver-du-re.

(for S and B)

Quant vis qu’aul-tre d’el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant, [d'el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant]. [my preference.]

[comma before repetition, point OUTSIDE square bracket : seems the most logical]

RF:  Yes, this is good.

Thanks for all these keenly observed details!

Principes éditoriaux

1. Généralités

Les textes sont exclusivement édités à partir d’une unique source musicale, même — et surtout — quand des concordances sont disponibles, comme pour les textes de poètes aussi connus que Marot ou Ronsard.

La transcription doit demeurer au plus près de la source, selon les principes suivants :

• aucune modernisation d’orthographe ou de ponctuation, en dehors (1) du rétablissement de la distinction i/j et u/v ; (2) du remplacement de l’esperluette « & » par « et » ; (3) de la résolution des abréviations (N.B. : « ñre » = « nostre », et non « notre »).

• conservation exacte des accents, des majuscules et de la ponctuation (N.B. : « , & », transcrit par « , et », et non « et »).

2. Difficultés particulières

L’établissement d’une édition poétique à partir de sources musicales présente des difficultés spécifiques, dont la résolution est particulièrement formatrice pour des étudiants. Les deux principales difficultés sont :

a. Rétablissement de la versification

La principale difficulté inhérente à l’édition d’un poème à partir d’une source musicale est la (re)mise en forme versifiée du texte, qui est évidemment présenté de façon continue sous les portées musicales. La transcription littéraire doit donc remettre en page le poème sous sa forme versifiée, avec retour à la ligne pour chaque vers. Ce travail exige donc en fait une analyse de la versification. Ainsi, toute transcription doit être accompagnée de l’indication des rimes et de la forme métrique dans les rubriques prévues à cet effet en regard du texte.

Dans la plupart des sources musicales (dont, par exemple, les imprimés de Du Chemin), le texte qui figure sous la musique inclut des majuscules au début de chaque vers, ce qui permet de rétablir assez facilement la versification. Toutefois, la mise en musique du texte peut comprendre (souvent) des mots répétés et (très souvent) des reprises (musicales), sans parler du fait que toutes les voix ne chantent pas forcément tout le texte. Le transcripteur se doit d’identifier ces différents problèmes et de rétablir le poème « initial » (notamment : sans mots répétés, sauf très rares exceptions). Enfin, il existe des cas particuliers, irréguliers ou difficiles, voire insolubles, qui exigent des explications : ces difficultés doivent être présentées et discutées dans la rubrique « Commentaire », en marge de l’édition du texte.

b. Variantes entre les parties musicales

Comme l’édition est établie, dans la plupart des cas, à partir des quatre voix ou parties musicales qui constituent la norme de la polyphonie du XVIe siècle (superius, altus, tenor, bassus), l’éditeur doit prendre en compte les quatre textes imprimés sous chaque voix, et donc opérer des choix entre d’éventuelles variantes. Ces variantes sont le plus souvent minimes, relevant de détails de ponctuation («  : » et « , » selon les voix) ou d’orthographe (« cœur » et « cueur » selon les voix). Dans ce cas, le transcripteur est invité à opter pour la leçon la plus fréquente, sans autre commentaire. En cas de variantes plus importantes ou d’hésitation sérieuse, une note doit être ajoutée dans la rubrique « Commentaire ».

Comité éditorial

David Fiala

Richard Freedman

Annie Cœurdevey

Présentation bases de données Ricercar : textes Du Chemin

Projet de titre, à terme ? :

Corpus poétique de la chanson française de la Renaissance ? (CPCFR / CorPoChaFR)

Présentation

Ce site est la première version d’essai d’un portail collaboratif d’édition des textes de chansons françaises de la Renaissance, qui vise à compléter progressivement le Catalogue de la Chanson française d’Annie Cœurdevey en proposant l’édition complète des textes poétiques français conservés dans les sources musicales du XVIe siècle. Ce corpus littéraire de plusieurs milliers de poèmes, dont l’immense majorité ne figure dans aucune publication littéraire de l’époque, reste très méconnu. Son édition et son étude est susceptible d’intéresser non seulement les musicologues, mais également les historiens de la littérature, de la langue ou de la culture.

Ce site est un portail de publication qui permet de consulter librement un riche ensemble de textes poétiques rares ou inédits. Mais sa spécificité réside plus encore dans sa nature collaborative. Pour mener à bien dans un délai raisonnable une édition complète du vaste corpus poétique de la chanson française de la Renaissance, il offre un outil qui permet à toute personne interessée de soumettre, après accord du comité éditorial, un ensemble de transcriptions en ligne, dont l’édition est ensuite validée et rendue publique par les éditeurs du site. Cette invitation à collaborer s’adresse notamment aux enseignants de littérature, d’histoire ou de musicologie, auxquels ce programme suggère un projet pédagogique simple et formateur : faire réaliser par des étudiants la transcription littéraire en ligne de volumes choisis en accord avec le comité éditorial. Pour ce type de projets, l’équipe Ricercar propose des accès sécurisés au site d’édition et le soutien logistique de son importante collection de sources musicales en fichiers images (pdf). Pour contacter le comité éditorial, suivre ce lien [mailto : david.fiala@univ-tours.fr].

Cette première version du site présente l’édition des textes de près de quatre cents chansons parues dans les seize livres de Chansons nouvelles publiés par l’imprimeur Nicolas Du Chemin entre 1549 et 1568. En association avec le projet des « Livres de chansons de Nicolas Duchemin » (R. Freedman), qui a permis l’accès en ligne à toutes les sources musicales nécessaires, la transcription de ces textes a été réalisée directement sur le site par les étudiants du séminaire de Master 1 « Histoire de la musique » du CESR, lors du premier semestre 2009-2010. Ce travail a permis de finaliser l’interface de soumission et de validation éditoriale en ligne, et notamment les procédures de connexion par des comptes individuels qui garantissent la sécurité des travaux soumis.

How to manage the flow of work? Each file now passes through several stages on its way to publication.   We need a clear system for knowing what needs to be done next with each file.  With so many ‘lieutenants’ in charge of the materials (from Chater to Freedman to Besson and then to Busson), we need a place to keep a list of what has been validated, and what has not. This is especially tricky, since we mainly correspond by email, and have no single place to look at where things stand.   Could a table on our editors blog do this?

What might users want to know about the site? What kinds of projects or work might be suitable for them to share with still others?  Classroom assignments?  Transcriptions?  Reconstructions?  How should we manage this as part of the public blog for the project?  See the examples started here on the Public Du Chemin Blog.

How might our projects be better integrated or coordinated with each other? We are already building some connections among the Coeurdevey/Freedman/Fiala projects (database, Du Chemin editions-facsimiles, Du Chemin literary texts).  What sorts of standards will allow these projects to work more smoothly with each other?  Would further work with the Dublin-Core standard help us link these (and other) resources more effectively, allowing users to find related materials by author, text, printer/scribe, date, etc?

How will users save, bookmark, and export what they find in these resources? Will users be able to cite a particular page or transcription using a unique and stable URL?    Will they be able to save the results of searches (or export them) in some way?  Might tools like Collex serve as a way for users to assemble their own “bookshelves” of digital documents and references, citing our resources as part of their research and publication?   See Nines.org And how will they inform us of what they are doing with these resources?

What digital tools might allow us to produce new kinds of editions and critical reports? The Text Encoding Initiative has in recent years emerged as a powerful standard for digital editions.  Now a new initiative aims to produce the same kind of standard for music:  Music Encoding Initiative (MEI).  Might a tool like this be a way to create digital music editions?  Digital critical reports of musical variants?  See this example of an edition with variants: Si la promesse

Musical Transcriptions. The base text in all cases is from the Chansons nouvelles series of Du Chemin.  By far the majority of the works issued in this series were first editions; many appear uniquely in this set.   [Note:  the Music Encoding Initiative (www.mei.org) will eventually make it possible to combine features of the single-text approach with those of a critical edition, at least for those compositions appearing in other sources of the sixteenth century.]

• In the musical transcriptions we have retained the original note values, and of course both added bar lines and arranged the individual parts in score format.  One tempus in the original notation thus corresponds to one measure in the modern transcription.
• Modern clefs are used in the transcriptions; original clefs can be seen via the incipits.  The incipits include original notation up to and including the first note of the given part.
• Flat and sharp signs appearing on the staff itself are found in the original sources.  Those appearing above the staff in the modern transcription are implied by contrapuntal contexts—in order to avoid forbidden intervals with other signed alterations, or in order to create complete cadences.
• Ligatures have been marked above the notes they connect, and serve to confirm text underlay by preventing a change of syllable.
• Coloration in the original notation (indicating a shift from duple to triple mensuration at a given level) has been transcribed without special indication.
• Repeat signs in the original parts have been retained in the modern transcriptions.  First and second endings have been regularized among the voice parts.
• Emendations to correct obvious errors or missing notes are recorded in the critical commentary for each piece.
• Most of the chansons are unique to the Du Chemin Chansons nouvelles series.  For compositions appearing in other sources of the 16th century, we note concordances and variants (if any) in the critical commentary for each piece.

Text Underlay. Text underlay follows a number of basic principles:

• In all cases we use Du Chemin’s books as a guide.   His typesetters had a careful eye for the alignment of text and musical notation as it is known in some music-theoretical writings of the mid sixteenth century.
• Phrases proceed syllabically, saving extra notes for the penultimate syllable of the line.
• The last note of each phrase normally receives the last syllable of the poetic line.
• Repetitions of words, or parts of poetic lines, are sometimes indicated in the original sources (either through written out repetitions or by ii.  These appear in roman type in the modern editions.  Repetitions in italic type are modern editorial interventions undertaken according to ideals set out in theoretical writings of the period.

CESR Programme Ricercar

CESR Bibliothèques virtuelles humanistes

National Endowment for the Humanities
Office of Digital Humanities

Dublin Core Metadata

Text Encoding Initiative

Music Encoding Initiatve (MEI-C.org)

University of Chicago Artfl Project:  Dictionnaire d’autrefois

Jenni Bloxam’s St. Donation Mass Project:

Jennifer Thomas’s Motet Database

DIAMM  [Facsimile and Catalog Project]

CMME  [Digital Music Editions]

Loire Valley Chansonniers (Concordance and Facsimile to Mellon Chansonnier, with Laborde, Copenhagen, Dijon, and Wolfenbuttel):

Copenhagen Chansonnier Project

Laborde Chansonnier Facsimile

Wolfenbuttel Chansonnier Facsimile

Mellon Chansonnier Facsimile

Dutch National Library Medieval Songbook Project

Rob Wegman—Renaissance Mass Project

So far, you can search (but only the Premier livre has full images and transcriptions), scroll through books, toggle among the voice parts, download PDFs, and download transcriptions.

Test Version of the Du Chemin Site

If you would like to PLAY the transcriptions using Sibelius Scorch player, you will need to install the Scorch player using the link below.

Instructions for Scorch Download