Hauptstimme

When listening to music, our attention is drawn back and forth between different elements. Often this is guided by following the main, most prominent melodic line: the hauptstimme. This repo is about that effect, providing

a corpus of orchestral scores, with human analysis annotations for where they think the "main theme" is.
code for processing this, e.g., for creating a summative "melody score"

Please see this explanation on fourscoreandmore for more details on the annotation method and FAQs.

Corpus Directory

<composer>/<symphony>/<movement>/<files>

The full, core corpus consists of c.102 movements:

Bach, JS:
- B Minor Mass,
  - 27 movements (depending on how you count it).
  - NB the movements numbered here according to NBAII (1–23) are are split by movement ...
    - ... where possible (e.g., 7a from 7b)
    - ... not in the case of dovetail (e.g., 4a.-b. as one with double bar line and editorial tempo marking).
- Brandenburg Concerto No.3 (BWV 1048)
  - 3 movements
- Brandenburg Concerto No.4 (BWV 1049)
  - 3 movements
- Fuga (Ricercata) a 6 voci, from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079, orchestrated by Anton von Webern
  - 1 movement
Beach, Amy:
- 1 symphony, the 'Gaelic',
  - 4 movements
Beethoven
- 9 symphonies
  - 37 movements
Brahms, Johannes:
- 4 symphonies,
  - 16 movements
Bruckner, Anton:
- 1 symphony, the 5th,
  - 4 movements

All of these cases include the files in the format <identifier> plus:

.mscz: The annotated MuseScore file. Edit this file.
.mxl: A conversion of the .mscz file.
_annotations.csv: The qstamp, bar, beat, theme label and instrument of each annotation.
_melody.mxl these melody segments stitched together in one single-stave files

Again, please see fourscoreandmore for images and more.

Score design choices

Minimal deviations from MuseScore defaults
Systematic changes as defined in the .mss style sheet.
- Justify full page.
- All present instrument showing at all time (none hidden).
- Note: Import the .mss style file in-app or with the command line:
  - mscore <before_file_name>.mscz --style <style-file-name>.mss -o <after_file_name>.mscz.
Every part on a separate stave (e.g., Flute 1 separate from Flute 2) for clarity and interoperability.
- This partly through the orchestra_part_split functionality.
- Connect bar lines through those like instruments e.g., Flutes 1 and 2; Horns 1, 2, and 3.
Part names:
- Full part names in the format <transposition where relevant> <instrument> <number>, e.g., A Clarinet 2.
- Abbreviated names without transposition or period character, e.g., Cl 2.
- String instruments in the singular e.g., Violin 1 (as in 'the violin 1 part')
Stave size. Manually set for each work to:
- attempt approximate consistency across multi-movement works
- use the largest stave size that fits within the page, including the large lyric annotations.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

Deutsche Telekom for funding part of this work in the context of the 'Beethoven X' project
Fellow 'Beethoven X' project team members for discussions.
Annotators
- On the 'Beethoven X' project, including Nicolai Böhlefeld and many others.
- At Cornell, Eastman, TU Dortmund, Durham, and elsewhere.
Transcribers in our team, and the wider MuseScore community for making their transcriptions freely available under the CCO licence, notably:

Licence

Scores: CC0 1.0 Universal
Annotations: CC-By-SA
Code: CC-By-SA

Citation

To follow ;). Provisionally Martins et al. 2024.

MarkGotham / Hauptstimme