Show me a strathspey: taking steps to digitize tune collections

Abstract

Purpose

The present paper describes an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research project into Scottish fiddle music and the important considerations of music digitization, access and discovery in designing the website that will be one of the project’s enduring outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a general review of existing online indices to music repertoires and some of the general problems associated with selecting metadata and indexing such material and is a survey of the various recent and contemporary projects into the digital encoding of musical notation for online use.

Findings

The questions addressed during the design of the Bass Culture project database serve to highlight the importance of cooperation between musicologists, information specialists and computer scientists, and the benefits of having researchers with strengths in more than one of these disciplines. The Music Encoding Initiative proves an effective means of providing digital access to the Scottish fiddle tune repertoire.

Originality/value

The digital encoding of music notation is still comparatively cutting-edge; the Bass Culture project is thus a useful exemplar for interdisciplinary collaboration between musicologists, information specialists and computer scientists, and it addresses issues which are likely to be applicable to future projects of this nature.

Citation

McAulay, K. (2016), "Show me a strathspey: taking steps to digitize tune collections", Reference Reviews, Vol. 30 No. 7, pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1108/RR-03-2015-0073