Medieval Notation for Modern Times

Road Map

The Neume Project road map currently calls for Phase II to be the development of Version 1.0 of the Editor: stable, reasonably bug-free, and feature complete. (Phase I, now complete, was the development of a usable alpha release, as shown at the Colloquium in Halifax in July 2011).

Phase I (completed)

Phase I involved development of an alpha release Editor, and was launched at the Gregorian Institute Colloquium in Halifax, July 2011. The alpha release, while viable for creating and editing scores, is not feature complete and has many bugs. A “quick and dirty” port of the player feature to iPad was also demonstrated.

Phase II

The Editor supports the creation and modification of Gregorian chant notation, using the modern (Solesmes, Palmer & Burgess) conventions of notation as model, with the essential features of modern software - file save & retrieval, clipboard, multiple undo/redo. It will continue to be web-based, running in a browser and accessed on neumeproject.ca.

With the release, it may move to a controlled-access (account, membership etc.) availability, with possibly a “trial mode” free access with limited features (e.g. file & print functions disabled).

Objectives

It is possible that some of these features may be deferred to Phase III in order to assure a timely release of a bug-free Editor.

Editor:

• Refine and debug core display engine to assure that it is robust, consistent and accurate
• Refine and debug interface behaviour, i.e. selecting (highlighting) and manipulating score elements
• Optimize file structure (XML)
• Inclusion of any missing neume “primitives” and other markings
  • oriscus
  • white punctum
  • ???
• Grouping of notes into neumes in place (on stave) (for applying epismas)
• Zoom page (2x)
• Move selected elements with arrow keys
• Selecting range of notes across staves (this could be a bitch!)
• Replace option(alt)-click to invoke modifier palette with floating palette
• Enabling flat symbol as key signature (instead of clef)
• Unlock flat symbol (as user preference?) to allow placement on other than b flat.
• Forced end of stave (“new line” — user selected wrap to new stave)
• User control of individual stave width
• Pagination (automatic & user selected “new page”)
• Basic styling of text elements (bold, italic)
• Availability of accented characters
• User preferences:
  • some automatic spacing options
  • page/document size

Player:

• enabling of fast forward/rewind
• play individual notes, selected notes
• user control of playback speed (tempo)

Library:

Discussion and definition of the on-line library, its structure and features, should be underway, if for no other reason than to ensure that the file structure will support the desired functionality.

Phase III

Phase III will be about the on-line library. It will be developed in MySQL, an open-source standard for web databases. Once the desired feature set and structure is defined, the back end (database) will be developed in tandem with the front end (browser) interface (search etc.). Key features may include:

• Search options — to be determined, but likely including:
  • by calendar (e.g. Year C — Proper 20)
  • by text
  • by type (e.g. Marian Anthem)
• Browseable by categories and/or subcategories
• Cross-reference with Cantus database

Phase IV

Editor:

With this phase focus will return to the Editor. Possible features may include:

• Support for alternate notations, e.g.
  • chironomic
  • fluxus
  • Laon
  • Einsiedeln
• Display/printing as triplex
• Display/printing of scores in modern (round note) notation (display/output only)
• Custom (user-created) neumes for neume palette

And implementation of enhancements and features for which demand may emerge, as well as bug fixes.

Tablet Player:

Serious consideration to the development of a tablet player (iOS, Android) may be given at this point. Why not earlier? Since tablet OSs do not use conventional file systems (open, load, save), a player app would be dependent on the on-line library for access to scores. If there is significant demand for a tablet player, development could be moved forward into Phase III — but not before. I do not propose to port the entire Editor to tablet platforms as the user interaction (finger) is too coarse for ease and accuracy of manipulation.

Library:

Some new features of the Editor may require upgrades to the Library (alternate notations almost certainly will). Also, as the Library is defined, we may decide that some advanced features may be deferred to Phase IV; also once it is deployed the need or desirability of new features may emerge.