Recognition of handwritten music scores

The recognition of handwritten music scores still remains an open problem. The existing approaches can only deal with very simple handwritten scores mainly because of the variability in the handwriting style and the variability in the composition of groups of music notes (i.e. compound music notes). In this work on the one hand I study the isolated symbols (i.e half-note, quarter-note, clefs, sharps) and on the other hand the compound music notes. Firstly, I will separate the isolated symbols (i.e half-notes, quarter-notes, clefs, sharps) to the compounds and I will study each one separately. The isolated symbols will be recognized with symbol recognition methods and compounds with a primitive hierarchy and syntactic rules. The method has been tested using several handwritten music scores of the CVC-MUSCIMA database and compared with a commercial Optical Music Recognition software. Given that my method is learning-free, the obtained results are promising.El reconeixement de partitures musicals manuscrites segueix sent un problema obert. Els enfocaments existents només poden reconéixer partitures manuscrites molt simples, principalment a causa de la variabilitat en l'estil d'escriptura i la variabilitat en la composició dels grups de notes musicals (p.e. els símbols musicals compostos). En aquest treball, per començar, se separaran els símbols simples (p.e blanques, negres, claus, sostinguts) dels compostos i els estudiaré per separat. Els símbols simples mitjançant mètodes de reconeixement de símbols i els compostos a partir d'una jerarquia de primitives i regles sintàctiques. El meu mètode ha estat provat utilitzant diferents partitures de música escrita a mà de la base de dades CVC-MUSCIMA i comparat amb un programari de reconeixement òptic musical comercial. Tenint en compte que el meu mètode és d'aprenentatge lliure, els resultats obtinguts són prometedors.El reconocimiento de partituras musicales manuscritas sigue siendo un problema abierto. Los enfoques existentes sólo pueden reconocer partituras manuscritas muy simples, principalmente debido a la variabilidad en el estilo de escritura y la variabilidad en la composición de los grupos de notas musicales (p.e. los símbolos musicales compuestos). En este trabajo, para empezar, se separarán los símbolos simples (p.e blancas, negras, llaves, sostenidos) de los compuestos y los estudiaré por separado. Los símbolos simples mediante métodos de reconocimiento de símbolos y los compuestos a partir de una jerarquía de primitivas y reglas sintácticas. Mi método ha sido probado utilizando diferentes partituras de música escrita a mano de la base de datos CVC-MUSCIMA y comparado con un software de reconocimiento óptico musical comercial. Teniendo en cuenta que mi método es de aprendizaje libre, los resultados obtenidos son prometedores

Sylvia Townsend Warner: a musical life

Music was central to Warner's life: she was first a young, aspiring composer, then a musicologist, later a librettist and friend to musicians and composers, and for fifty years a writer whose works regularly engaged with music in richly diverse ways. Unpublished diary entries show her knowledgeable and personal response to music heard in the concert hall, on the radio, via gramophone records or as a participant in a choir. Her ear was tuned to sound, especially sound in nature:water, birds, animals, the sea, the wind, as well as the cacophony of human voices, singing, shouting, joyous or sad. Warner's acute ear tuned in to the life around her and articulated it in her written work. A late diary entry just a few months before her death shows her frailty and the continuing importance of music in her daily life. Sound and music are contained in one eloquently descriptive passage: 'I fell against the tool-shed with a loud clang. Little the worse. Revived by a fine performance of the Pastoral Symphony'. My aims in this thesis are to present the fullest narrative yet of Warner's engagement with music, to examine her academic writing on the subject and to recount her musical collaborations and friendships which have not previously been a subject for academic discussion. My research draws both on printed sources and on previously unexplored archives to give information about music from Warner's childhood until the end of her life. Music is woven through Warner's creative writing, too, and this is briefly discussed within chapters of the thesis. The importance of music to Warner has often been noted but never until now researched. This biographical account of music in her life will provide another focus for ongoing academic study and analysis of her literary work

Ilmari Krohn ja Suomen musiikkitieteen varhaiset Ranskan-kontaktit : Liikkuvuus, verkottuminen ja vuorovaikutus

Yearbook of the Musicological Department of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Estonian Musicological Society, volume 9, dedicated to the memory of late Professor Urve Lippus.Conceived in memory of late Professor of Musicology of Estonian Academy of Music Urve Lippus (1950–2015), to honour her contribution to music history research, the article analyses transcultural relations and the role of cultural capitals to the discipline at its early phase in the university context. The focus is on the early French contacts of the founder of the institutional Finnish musicology, University of Helsinki Professor Ilmari Krohn (1867–1960) and his pupils. The analysis of Krohn’s mobility, networking and interaction is based on his correspondence and documentation concerning his early congress journeys to London (1891) and to Paris (1900). Two French correspondents stand out for this early phase of his career as a musicologist: Julien Tiersot in the area of comparative research on traditional music, and Georges Houdard concerning Gregorian chant and neume notation. By World War I Krohn was quite well-read in French-language musicology. But Paris was for him also a stronghold for international networking more generally. Accomplished musicians, Krohn and his musicology students Armas Launis, Leevi Madetoja and Toivo Haapanen even had an artistic bond with French repertoires. My results contradict the claim that early Finnish musicology was an exclusive domain of German influences.Peer reviewe

'An idealist touched by practicality’: the work and influence of Richard Runciman Terry (1864–1938)

Richard Runciman Terry resigned from Westminster Cathedral in 1924 after twenty threeyears as Director of Music. During his tenure, and for the previous four years at Downside Abbey, a substantial corpus of fifteenth and sixteenth-century music was recovered by Terry from a range of manuscripts, bringing a previously forbidden and neglected repertoire back to use and public notice. The consequences of this work were far-reaching, directly influencing the compositions of his contemporaries and simultaneously contributing to the reception of Latin into Anglican liturgy. This thesis examines Terry’s significant contribution to music in the early twentieth-century and more broadly the shift in national cultural attitudes to the use of Latin in worship. The manuscripts which were the subject of Terry’s palaeography are examined, with his work on the only surviving polyphonic Mass by John Merbecke presented as a case study. Terry’s own compositional cycle is assessed and his work with carols, hymns and sea shanties has been considered. His relevance today is assessed in addition to the lost opportunities during his lifetime to secure a lasting legacy. The often justified criticism of Terry’s working practices is examined, as well as the outright hostility to him personally from a small group of musicologists of the Anglican establishment. The present study has been achieved with extensive research of the Westminster Cathedral archives, Terry’s own numerous writings and those of others shaping the reception of his work. The early twentieth century was a period of substantial interest in the music of the past. This study seeks to identify Terry’s contribution to the fledgeling early-music movement and contextualise his work within the conflicted history of English church music

The Invention of the National in Venezuelan Art Music, 1920-1960.

This dissertation explores the developments of art music in Venezuela during the first half of the twentieth century as an exercise in nation building. It argues that beginning in the early 1920s a nationalist movement in music emerged, which was not only determined by but also determinant in the construction of a concept of nationhood. The movement took place at a crucial time when the country had entered a process of economic transformation. The shift in Venezuela's economic system from agrarian to industrial in the 1910s triggered a reconfiguration of the country's social and cultural structures. Industrialization brought about a new type of culture in which individual loyalties to the nation became more apparent than ever before. The institutionalization of national culture took place not only within the government, through state policies of national integration, but also less formally within social organizations. At both levels, however, the process of institutionalizing national culture involved a great deal of cultural engineering and invention. In art music, these dynamics took the form of a nationalist movement initiated by a group of native musicians in the city of Caracas around 1920. These musicians sought to modernize musical life in the country, which they saw as being old-fashioned in comparison to contemporary European music. In addition to creating a modern music infrastructure they sought to establish a national art-music culture. To that end, they set out to articulate a national ideology of music and to act on several nationalistic objectives: revising the narrative of the country's music history, disseminating historical and ethnomusicological research, creating national policies on music and music education, and composing a nationalist musical repertoire. By looking at those musical developments against the backdrop of social change, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the constructionist nature of musical nationalism in mid-twentieth-century Venezuela. In this light, the renovation movement is to be seen as a nation-building project made possible by constructing and solidifying new modes of cultural communication and new identifying marks of national culture