About the Project

 

What is metadata?

Metadata describes what something else is. In our case, music is the actual data. Metadata about a piece of music includes information such as its composer, what manuscript it is in, when it dates from, details about how the music is notated, and aspects of the music such as the pitch range, clefs, key signatures and time signatures used. None of these pieces of data are the music itself, but each describes an aspect of the music.

How did the project start?

Barry Pearce is a musician and researcher of bowed stringed instrument history, specialising in bowed stringed instrument iconography. He runs the Bowed Strings Iconography Project . During research on Medieval bowed stringed instruments he needed to know about the range of repertoire and tonal centres. Despite looking for this information it became apparent that there were no existing datasets. So a preliminary investigation of around 100 pieces was undertaken during the second half of 2019. This preliminary investigation yielded interesting results and suggested that certain parts of the Gamut were used more than others. Having seen patterns emerging in the data he felt it was important to formalise this work and move the project to a wider footing so a lot more data could be added.

What are we trying to discover?

In the first instance we are investigating the notated pitch range of music between 1000 CE to about 1650 CE. Guido or Arrezzo created the first pitch-specific notation system (the basics of the stave/staff system we use today) in c.1030 CE. The musical scale (the Gamut, named after the bottom note Gamma Ut) consists of the notes from G2 (the bottom line of F (bass) clef) through to E5 (the space of top of the G (treble) clef). The Gamut remains stable from the start of our period, but in the late 15th century things start to change with range increasing both in higher and lower pitches. This might coincide with the emergence of consorts of instruments. This process continues through into the 17th century and beyond. 

The primary research aspect is to understand the changing profile of pitch range through this time.

In addition to data on pitch range we are recording metadata about the staves, clef, time signatures and key signatures. We therefore will be able to map the use of different staves and clefs over time and geographical area. These secondary research aspects may yield useful information regarding the development of notation.