• Teaching units and modules
• Resources and Documentation
• The project
• Link to sheet music database

Courses on musical analysis are an integral part of both musicology courses and the training of music teachers and musicians at universities and conservatories. The goal of the fellowship project is to design, test, evaluate, and teach several flexibly applicable teaching modules on music analysis, with recourse to various computer-based analysis tools. The teaching modules are dedicated to computer-based annotation and visualization of musical texts and audio files, statistical analysis of music corpora, search for musical patterns (rhythms, melodies, harmony connections, etc.), and comparison of interpretations, among other things. They are intended to complement conventional analysis courses, will be tested and evaluated in various courses at the HfM Weimar, and will be made available free of charge to a wider circle of interested parties via an Internet platform. Computers can be used as aids in the analysis of musical texts and recordings. Computer programs can be used to quickly and reliably

• visualize musical sequences and structures,
• statistically describe musical characteristics of the pieces in question (e.g. frequencies of pitches)
• and searched for specific patterns (e.g. melodic motifs).

This extends conventional approaches to analysis and opens up and explores new perspectives of musical analysis in musicology and music theory. On the one hand, the computer tools can be used to pursue specific analytical questions, and on the other hand, a playful approach to the tools and note files enables the discovery of unexpected connections - which can then lead to new analytical questions.

All software used in the teaching units is freely accessible and license-free. Thus, the project follows the principle of open access, open access to publicly funded project results and independence from commercially oriented IT corporations.

Teaching units and modules

Here, two teaching units are provided that introduce various possibilities of computer-assisted analysis of music or audio files on the basis of music-analytical questions. Each teaching unit consists of a basic module (Basics Sheet Music or Basics Audio) and a specialization (Advanced). The teaching units can be used in self-study or within courses. The duration of the teaching units is approximately three sessions of a 90-minute, with additional preparation, homework and optional specializations.

Resources and Documentation

These pages contain information on installing the required software, a database with score files of several 1000 compositions, comprehensive documentation of score analysis programs developed in the project, and other materials.

The project

Further information about the project's objectives, staff, publications, etc., links to similar research projects and publications can be found on the research page. The project Computergestützte Musikanalyse in der digitalen Hochschullehre is located at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena of the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar. It is funded by the Thuringian Ministry for Economy, Science and Digital Change and the Stifterverband. The project sees itself as a contribution to Computational Musicology or Digital Musicology within Digital Humanities.

The project is currently in the test phase. Feedback is welcome: analyse@hfm-weimar.de

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