Talks by Julia Craig-McFeely
Among the many examples of Tudor music in Oxford’s libraries is a badly damaged set of partbooks ... more Among the many examples of Tudor music in Oxford’s libraries is a badly damaged set of partbooks written by schoolmaster John Sadler in the mid 1500s. Acid paper and acid ink has caused burn-through damage to most of the pages in the book, rendering much of the content nearly illegible. The Tudor Partbooks project (a collaboration funded by the AHRC between musicologists at Newcastle University and the University of Oxford) is engaged in restoring Sadler’s books to usability for publication in facsimile form as their fragility means they have not been available to readers since the early 1970s. This talk looks at some of the techniques of digital reconstruction and restoration developed by the Tudor Partbooks team, and some of the difficulties we have encountered, both physical and ethical, in developing this complex process.
We live in interesting times: 20 years ago the digital medium had little or no impact on scholarl... more We live in interesting times: 20 years ago the digital medium had little or no impact on scholarly activity; today the majority of active scholars learned their research techniques and methodologies in a print-oriented world. Born-digital research styles and scholars see data differently from those moulded by the print age: not only are research methodologies evolving, but also the way in which we manage digital content as we change from replicating or adapting print structures and thought processes to an understanding of content that has no roots in print culture. The session discusses issues facing a project born in the paper age as it attempts to meet the demands of digital modes of thought and research.
This seminar is aimed at those interested in the digital reconstruction of manuscripts, wanting t... more This seminar is aimed at those interested in the digital reconstruction of manuscripts, wanting to find out more about how it could help their research before committing to purchasing the necessary software. It will provide participants with a sense of what digital reconstruction entails, what can be achieved through the process, and what software and equipment they would need in order to get started.
A brief introduction to the problems encountered in the digital restoration of the Sadler Partboo... more A brief introduction to the problems encountered in the digital restoration of the Sadler Partbooks (GB-Ob Mus.e.1-5); questions and problems encountered by the research team of the Tudor Partbooks project in working with this set of badly damaged partbooks.
Scribal identification in early modern hands raises many imponderables around the circulation, ow... more Scribal identification in early modern hands raises many imponderables around the circulation, ownership and compilation of manuscripts. There is no formal system available for reliable and defensible methods of scribal identification, which can lead to quite disparate scribal identifications. Elizabethan miscellanies raise particularly interesting issues about recognising scribal traits: scribes in sources such as the ‘Hamond’ partbooks (GB-Lbl:add 30480-4) seem to vary their writing style without visible cause or purpose, effectively misleading the unwary. Taking these sources as a starting point, the paper examines ways in which scribal identification can be approached, and suggests a concrete methodology for examining early modern hands that could be applied to scribal identification in much broader contexts, both within and outside musicology. Applying this method to the 'Hamond' partbooks reveals the layers, phases and contexts for their copying and use during the latter half of the sixteenth century.
The paper will provide a short introduction to the work of DIAMM, discussing some of the less vis... more The paper will provide a short introduction to the work of DIAMM, discussing some of the less visible activities of the project. The wholesale shift to digital in imaging has led to some difficulties that were not really considered in the era of analog images, with the variation in quality and resolution resulting from the different equipment in use is often not obvious to end users. Some of the pitfalls of the unseen aspects of digital imaging will be discussed which should help listeners to avoid some of the more frequent errors in usage that are beginning to emerge. As DIAMM is widely known for digital restoration, there will be time for discussion of some of the methods and what they can yield in terms of scholarly benefits.
A re-run of a seminar from January 7 for those who missed it. This seminar is aimed at those inte... more A re-run of a seminar from January 7 for those who missed it. This seminar is aimed at those interested in the digital reconstruction of manuscripts, wanting to find out more about how it could help their research before committing to purchasing the necessary software. It will provide participants with a sense of what digital reconstruction entails, what can be achieved through the process, and what software and equipment they would need in order to get started.
The seminar is offered as part of the AHRC-funded Tudor Partbooks project, which will be undertaking a digital restoration of the Sadler partbooks (www.facebook.com/tudorpartbooks). Follow-on workshops offering computer-based training will be held over the course of the three-year project, starting in April 2015.
***To register email katherine.butler@music.ox.ac.uk by 1st February****
This paper will examine the corpus of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century lute manuscripts, ... more This paper will examine the corpus of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century lute manuscripts, looking at the reasons behind their compilation and the scribes responsible as well as, more broadly, at what these manuscripts reveal about the way in which musical instruments were taught in early modern England, who was playing them, and the purpose this skill served in social change and advancement.
For most users of digital images, these are simply an onscreen version of what used to arrive on ... more For most users of digital images, these are simply an onscreen version of what used to arrive on glossy card. We are happier about the longevity of the images, which won't (we are pretty sure) fade or discolour. We can make multiple backup copies so that it doesn't matter if we lose the master, and we can share the image with someone else (as long as we have permission to do so). And of course there is the added advantage with high-resolution images that you can zoom in on the screen and see detail that is not visible to the naked eye.
There is however another layer of usage that only a few attempt, and which is particularly pertinent when examining damaged documents. The paper demonstrates some of the results of digital restoration on damaged medieval documents, and discusses some of the practical and ethical issues surrounding digital restoration.
Papers by Julia Craig-McFeely
This chapter examines three projects that provide musicologists with a range of resources for man... more This chapter examines three projects that provide musicologists with a range of resources for managing and exploring their materials: DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music), CMME (Computerized Mensural Music Editing) and the software Gamera. Since 1998, DIAMM has been enhancing research of scholars worldwide by providing them with the best possible quality of digital images. In some cases these images are now the only access that scholars are permitted, since the original documents are lost or considered too fragile for further handling. For many sources, however, simply creating a very high-resolution image is not enough: sources are often damaged by age, misuse (usually Medieval 'vandalism'), or poor conservation. To deal with damaged materials the project has developed methods of digital restoration using mainstream commercial software, which has revealed lost data in a wide variety of sources. The project also uses light sources ranging from ultraviolet to infrared in order to obtain better readings of erasures or material lost by heat or water damage. The ethics of digital restoration are discussed, as well as the concerns of the document holders. CMME and a database of musical sources and editions, provides scholars with a tool for making uid editions and diplomatic transcriptions: without the need for a single xed visual form on a printed page, a computerized edition system can utilize one editor's transcription to create any number of visual forms and variant versions. Gamera, a toolkit for building document image recognition systems created by Ichiro Fujinaga is a broad recognition engine that grew out of music recognition, which can be adapted and developed to perform a number of tasks on both music and non-musical materials. Its application to several projects is discussed. Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag stellt drei Projekte vor, die der musikwissenschaftlichen Forschung bei der Erschließung ihres Quellenmaterials dienlich sind: DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music), CMME (Computerized Mensural Music Editing) und das Programm Gamera. DIAMM verbreitet seit 1998 digitale Abbildungen von Handschriften in
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 18, 2023
Digital medievalist, Jan 18, 2008
... F-Rodez, Archives départementales de l'Aveyron, MS J2001, fragments. ... Some are in... more ... F-Rodez, Archives départementales de l'Aveyron, MS J2001, fragments. ... Some are inaccessible through politics or geography, while others are now considered too valuable or delicate to be consulted in person, such as the Old Hall MS (British Library Add. ...
Digital reproductions of manuscripts are now reasonably easy to obtain from a very wide variety o... more Digital reproductions of manuscripts are now reasonably easy to obtain from a very wide variety of libraries, although persuading suppliers to meet the standards required for digital restoration - or even high-quality reproduction - is surprisingly difficult. As more researchers tackle image-processing to help them read damaged originals the need for suppliers to meet a baseline standard is much greater, so the paper examines a set of basic guidelines for requesting images for research purposes. The paper demonstrates some 'virtual restoration' techniques on a variety of different types of damage, and discusses the ethical boundaries of different methodologies and the ways in which an end user can be misled. Photographic techniques such as ultra-violet, infra-red and multi-spectral imaging as adjuncts to normal colour imaging will also be discussed.
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Talks by Julia Craig-McFeely
The seminar is offered as part of the AHRC-funded Tudor Partbooks project, which will be undertaking a digital restoration of the Sadler partbooks (www.facebook.com/tudorpartbooks). Follow-on workshops offering computer-based training will be held over the course of the three-year project, starting in April 2015.
***To register email katherine.butler@music.ox.ac.uk by 1st February****
There is however another layer of usage that only a few attempt, and which is particularly pertinent when examining damaged documents. The paper demonstrates some of the results of digital restoration on damaged medieval documents, and discusses some of the practical and ethical issues surrounding digital restoration.
Papers by Julia Craig-McFeely
The seminar is offered as part of the AHRC-funded Tudor Partbooks project, which will be undertaking a digital restoration of the Sadler partbooks (www.facebook.com/tudorpartbooks). Follow-on workshops offering computer-based training will be held over the course of the three-year project, starting in April 2015.
***To register email katherine.butler@music.ox.ac.uk by 1st February****
There is however another layer of usage that only a few attempt, and which is particularly pertinent when examining damaged documents. The paper demonstrates some of the results of digital restoration on damaged medieval documents, and discusses some of the practical and ethical issues surrounding digital restoration.
Full colour facsimile with introductory study by Lawrence Earp, Domenic Leo and Carla Shapreau. Preface by Christopher de Hamel
The facsimile and introductory study of this magnificent manuscript will be shipping from 1 February 2015. It is reproduced in two volumes, introductory study (vol. 1, 218 pp. colour and b/w) and facsimile (vol. 2, 787 colour images) in a slipcase. The introduction is a multi-author work, with extensive new content and contextual study by Prof Lawrence Earp revealing hitherto unknown information about the provenance of the book in the library of the Duc du Berry. Domenic Leo provides a detailed discussion of the art-historical aspects of the book (reproduced in colour), and Carla Shapreau contributes an explosive chapter about the history of the book in the Nazi era. In the preface Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge discusses the recent history of the book and it’s acquisition by the Ferrells. The early-bird price for the book is £470, full price (from 1 March 2015) will be £560. (Please note that bookseller discounts are not available on the early-bird price.) The book will be ready for shipping at the end of January 2015. Postage within the UK is free, and charges outside the UK are calculated at checkout from the shop. The book weighs just over 8 Kg packed.
Orders can be placed through the online store ( tinyurl.com/DIAMMPubs ) or by email to diamm@music.ox.ac.uk for reseller discounts or institutions requiring pro-forma invoices
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