KISS Considered Harmful in Digitization of Medieval Chant Manuscripts

Abstract

The KISS principle ('Keep It Simple, Stupid') is harmful in projects about digitizing medieval chant manuscripts. Such manuscripts contain various kinds of musical notations called 'neumes'. Some recent initiatives in this area have garnered recognition but have a troublesome disregard for normal scientific protocols of literature search and peer review. KISS methods of transcription that cover only late medieval, square-neume notation are harmful because they tend to fragment digital libraries of chant. In particular, early manuscripts with non-pitched neume notations are hugely important to chant scholarship; KISS data representations for pitched music on a cleffed staff are, however, not capable of handling the complexities and uncertainties of early neumation. Patience and serious scholarship are needed during the development of a unified data representation covering all neume notations. In the meantime, much important work can proceed in other areas such as cataloging, digital imaging, and transcription of chant texts.