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These cataloguing guidelines are written as an accompaniment to the second version of the Plaine & Easie Code (PAEC) specification. In previous editions of the specifications, the formal description of the code, and the guidelines for its interpretation, were given as a single document. Although convenient as a reference, it also posed significant challenges for the interpretation of what was required, and what was recommended. In the new edition of the PAEC, the specification document provides a formal description of a valid PAEC encoding, while this document provides recommendations on the application of the code to incipit cataloguing.
The thematic index derives its superiority over non-thematic lists be cause it can not only arrange a body of music in a systematic order, but it provides, at the same time, positive identification in a minimum of space and symbols. It does so by the use of the "incipit," or musical citation of the opening notes. For most music, an incipit of no more than a dozen pitches is required. When rhythmic values accompany the pitches, the incipit's "uniqueness quotient" is astonishingly high.
A musical work, printed or manuscript, may be identified by composer, title, opus number, key, instrumentation, movement headings, first line of text, date, publisher, dedicatee, plate number, etc. No one of these, indeed no combination of these, can provide as certain an identification as an incipit. For example, an anonymous 15th-century Latin motet may also appear as a French chanson entitled "L'amant douloureux." A composer may write a dozen trio sonatas in D major, three of them with the same tempo sequence. A concert aria found in a library in Vienna, in the key of F, may turn up in Prague in the key of G, and with added horn parts. Two printings of a set of quartets may be given different plate numbers by the same publisher. Two publications of the same opera, in different cities, may bear different titles, and dedications to different patrons. Finally, a set of six symphonies may be published in Amsterdam with one opus number, in Offenbach with another, and in London within a series of Periodical Overtures without any at all, and under another composer's name.
By contrast, the presence of the incipit avoids confusion. Identification is certain. Even transposed works can be readily identified in properly organized incipit files. In dealing with anonymi and with works of disputed authorship, the incipit becomes indispensable-as a catalogue without them will readily demonstrate. In short, the collection, classification, transposition, and lexicographical ordering of the incipits into thematic catalogues have enabled scholars to solve a myriad of otherwise insoluble problems, and have provided musicians, librarians, students, biographers, and program annotators with an invaluable reference tool.
The cataloguing of musical incipits in RISM is primarily for the purposes of identification and disambiguation, where all other bibliographic means of doing so are not sufficient to uniquely identify a musical piece.
The most important component of incipit cataloguing is the capture of identifiable musical material. This will, in most cases, be the opening measures of a piece. It may, occasionally, be the entrance of a melodic instrument (when the opening of the piece starts with otherwise ambiguous accompaniment, such as a ground bass). In rare instances, it may be the entrance of a theme that is many measures in.
In all cases, the encoder of the incipit must keep in mind the primary motivations of identification and disambiguation when choosing the musical content to capture as the incipit. It does not serve the users of the catalogue to encode a unique part of a musical work when all other instances of the incipit in the catalogue identify the opening measures. The uniqueness of the cataloguing simply means that the incipit will not group with similar incipits, and it will thus be "lost" in the larger catalogue.
The capture of melodic and rhythmic qualities is of primary importance. Considerations of visual appearance, phrasing, polyphony, or other special indications are of secondary importance, or should be ignored altogether, when capturing incipits. While it may seem important for any single source, it can also pose significant challenges to positive identification and disambiguation when compared to all other sources.
From the beginning, the PAEC was purpose-built for the capture of incipits for the purpose of identification. It could be written by hand, or typed on a standard mechanical typewriter. Unlike other codes, the goal of the PAEC was to be simple. Indeed, the first version of the PAEC, issued in 1964, was subsequently simplified in 1965, to "make the code more usable on an international basis." (Brook, Fontes, 1965). The current PAEC specification is based primarily on this simplified version.
In the intervening years since the introduction of the PAEC, a number of changes and additional features have been introduced. In some cases these additions have significantly improved the coding scheme; in other cases the additions have ultimately distracted from the central purpose of the PAEC when put into practice. The reasons for these changes are not always known. They may have been in response to a specific need, or they may have been added as a "nice-to-have" without an identified use case. Whatever the reason, they have been available and widely adopted and standardized, making it difficult to introduce retrospective changes to the coding system to address problems and clarify ambiguities. With no clear versioning scheme in place, the previous version is now no longer updated, and is now known as "Version 1".
The new version, Version 2, contains several backwards-incompatible changes from Version 1. It is not the case that incipits in Version 1 need to be "upgraded," nor is it a problem to have software or other standards support PAEC Version 1. It is simply a way to differentiate the two versions. In most cases, unless the version of the incipit is plainly stated as being Version 2, it should be assumed that it is supposed to conform to Version 1 of the specification.
The goals for Version 2 were to remove ambiguities in the previous specification and to make the PAEC more suitable for machine processing of incipits. Since the previous version was developed before there was software available to render the code into a graphical representation, several parts of the specification existed that made it difficult to unambiguously and reliably process the data into the notation it was intended to represent.
Version 2 of the specification is written to make the requirements of the encoding system clear, to help software developers to build applications that can process the data in a uniform way. The requirements are given using [RFC2119], which provide keywords, such as "MUST" and "MAY", to indicate required or optional features, respectively. Most of the sections in the specification have also been expanded to include an actual description of the code, as well as illustrative examples.
To accompany the specifications, the present document was introduced as a means of helping cataloguers interpret the specification through the use of real-world examples and explanatory prose. Many of these examples are taken from the RISM cataloguing guidelines, and are taken from real-world occurrences of these patterns.
This version of the code is maintained by the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) and the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) for use as an exchange format in the library environment.
Music incipits help identify works and facilitate the comparison of historical musical sources.
Which music incipits to enter depends on the kind of music. Best practice for instrumental music is to enter incipits for the violin or the highest part. For vocal music, enter the highest voice plus the first violin or the highest instrumental part.
The incipit should be neither too long nor too short, and make as much musical sense as possible. It should contain at least 2 bars or 6 non-repeated notes.
If the instrument is a transposing instrument, you may enter it at notated pitch or at sounding pitch.
Encoding chords has changed considerably with Version 2.
Previously, chords were indicated by chaining together notes with
the ^ character. In Version 2, notes are grouped
together between the ^ start and > end
characters. These were chosen to indicate "go vertical" (that is,
all notes that follow should be interpreted as occurring at the same time) and
then "resume horizontal" (the notes that follow should be considered to follow
one after the other.
It is possible to change the specified notation system to neume and
mensural notation by varying the characters used in the clef. A *
character, e.g., G*2, indicates that the notation should be
interpreted as mensural. A : indicates that the notation should be
interpreted as neume notation.
Cataloguers should be aware, however, that switching the system of notation may have unintended consequences on their ability to capture the incipit at hand. It is not simply a means of changing the shapes of the notes that are rendered.
For example, supplying note durations in neume notation are not permitted, since neumes themselves do not explicitly carry indications of duration. Likewise, choosing mensural notation limits the use of time signatures to proportion signs only, and adding bar lines will trigger renderers to show a warning indicating that mensural notation does not use measures.
In general, and in keeping with the goal of melodic identification, these notation types should only be used if the musical source itself requires its use to accurately capture the melodic intention of the incipit, particularly around the interpretation of time and note duration.
Notation abbreviations, such as tremolo, slash, etc., must be written out in full using the actual notation.