The Virtual Score: Representation, Retrieval, Restoration

An overview of approaches to working with musical scores in the age of computer—and especially Internet—applications.

The Virtual Score examines a broad range of approaches to working with musical scores in ways suited to electronic distribution. The first section, on musical representation and interchange, discusses early music and its multiple editorial stances, scores in Braille musical notation (with and without NIFF), the GUIDO format for "adequate" (as opposed to comprehensive) music representation, Extensible Markup Language (XML) and music, and the latest methods for distributing scores online. The second section discusses retrieval and/or analysis of data from encoded melodies. The final section discusses the use of image-processing software to restore lost features of primary sources of music prints and manuscripts, to archive the original and/or restored images, and, in some cases, to facilitate electronic access to the images.

Walter B. Hewlett is Professor of Music at Stanford University.

Eleanor Selfridge-Field is Professor of Music and Symbolic Systems at Stanford University and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities.