Scribe

1. Scribe • Program for the encoding, storing, analysis and printing of medieval music • It is both: • An encoding language based on the common names of neumes and ligatures • An integrated database into which all encoded music may be stored and searched.

2. Encoding in SCRIBE • Abreviations of the customary names of neumes combined with numbers which identify the position of neumes on the staff --makes encoding easy for those familiar with square notation --mnemonic codes are available on the screen at the same time as the music is being entered, for those unfamiliar

3. enables you to see the music encoded in its original form in square notation, or in modern round notation without translating the data, but simply by changing the display -->Transcription is possible the via the export functionality of SCRIBE

4. Export Capability • Encoded data may be exported for transcription into modern notation via a notational software such as SCORE

5. The SCRIBE Database • The SCRIBE Database is a database of medieval music which can be searched by text or melody and which will return musical information in the form of both a modern score and a color facsimile of an original manuscript. It contains a complete annual cycle of liturgical chant taken from original medieval sources and complete works of selected composers from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.

6. SCRIBE Database • Contains some 6000 musical scores from the middle ages and the early Renaissance period. • These scores are to be made available to authorised users of the database in the following formats: • • Original notation: exactly as the scribe wrote the source manuscript • • Original notation with modern clefs on a five-line staff • • Modern notation, with round stemless noteheads and slurs indicating the original ligation and the original notation immediately above the modern • • Modern notation with rhythmic values as indicated in mensural notation.

7. The La Trobe University Library Medieval Music database • A version of the SCRIBE database is available as one of the library services of La Trobe University • The materials supplied to the library consist of two kinds of files: • a text file which contains all of the data to be indexed • image files of the musical sources.

8. SCRIBE and other databases • The SCRIBE database has been integrated with other related databases so that the results of searches can also include data about concordant texts and melodies from information available through the Cantusproject at the University of Western Ontario

9. SCRIBE enables you to encode any musically significant element of notation, to search the data you have entered for any of those elements, and to retrieve, print or export the results of your search.

10. La Trobe University Library Medieval Music Database • Content may be searched by query of: • any word or phrase in any liturgical text • any identifier of liturgical items (abb. Est. by Cantus @ Catholic University) • names of feasts (liturgical occasions) in Latin or English • CAO number • Manuscript source (eg Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale 'Augusta', MS 2801) • any fragment of melody

11. Footnote: Corpus Antiphonalium Officii is a multi-volume work cataloguing all the text and their accompanying melodic chants contained within twelve different medieval sources, covering both the monastic and the Roman cursus; each chant is given a concordance number beginning with the letters CAO and followed by an identifying number. Hesbert has labeled thousands of chants in his work. This CAO number can be used to identify matching chants in any liturgical songbook, giving researchers a common ground for cataloguing the material with which they are working. See here for more.