Article
Multi-Modal Data Networks in Music: Thoughts on a Digital Performance Edition (de)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
The subject of scholarly-critical music editions today is primarily, if not always, written music. This, however, does not take into account the audio media that are so formative for the musical cultures of the 20th and 21st centuries. Therefore, an edition of sounding music poses an urgent, yet unsolved problem. By a Digital Performance Edition, the authors strive to develop a new, multimodal type of music edition. Important methodological steps of such a Performance Edition are (1) measurement and critical evaluation of sonic evidences, (2) their linking with music notation sources, (3) digital encoding and critical annotation of the findings, and (4) the readability, navigability, and explorability of the multimodal space which comprises written sources, graphics, audio, and encoding data. In this way, a Digital Performance Edition does not stop at the measurement of acoustic features, but derives model descriptions from them that allow for a critical annotation and systemic contextualization of the measurements. Similarly, printed performance instructions and (handwritten) notes by the musicians may be used to derive (personalized) interpretation hypotheses, made audible via MIDI and audio rendering, and set in relation to the musicians’ recordings.