Encoding Song in the Troubadour Melodies Database

Abstract

The Troubadour Melodies Database is a Drupal-platform site that includes basic information about and transcriptions of the extant troubadour melodies as they are found in the 13th-14th century manuscripts preserving the tradition. The melodies are encoded using alpha-numeric strings designed for the font Volpiano, developed by David Hiley and Fabian Weber. The site gives basic information on the manuscripts and troubadours themselves as well as tables showing concordances and totals of melodies by troubadour, manuscript, genre, and catalog number. In addition to gathering the melodies and information about the corpus in one place, the database also provides the ability to search the melodies using a search tool based on Jan Koláček’s original Melody Search Tool, designed for his own chant database, which allows for three searches (beginning, anywhere, and end) of the melodies in the database. Further, having the melodies encoded has allowed for analysis and comparison of the melodies in terms of their characteristics using tools like AntConc to generate concordances, find collocates, etc. Modification of the Melody Search Tool’s PHP script has also allowed the generation of intervallic profiles of the melodies, creating further opportunities for analysis for any melodies encoded in Volpiano.