Schedule & Syllabus
Please note: This residential summer institute will be held at New York University from 14–26 July 2026. Below is the preliminary schedule, which is subject to change. More scheduling information will be released with the final schedule in early 2026.
Participants arrive.
Introductions and Welcome; Expectations; Terms and Technologies (J. Cumming and R. Freedman)
Participants will introduce themselves, share their interests, and describe prior related experience. Project directors Julie Cumming and Richard Freedman will present basic terminology, technologies, and approaches.
9:00am–12:00pm: Participants get to know each other; share prior knowledge and areas of interest
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Review of key terms and new technologies (MIR, MEI, CRIM, etc.)
Digital Resources for Plainchant; Using the Cantus Database (J. Bain and D. Lacoste)
Medieval plainchant for the Catholic liturgy is one of the areas in musicology where the use of technology is most advanced. Jennifer Bain and Debra Lacoste have been leaders in this area for decades. They lead a project (DACT: Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission, https://dact-chant.ca/) that expands the field to include chant outside of Europe (including chant in Indigenous languages in North America, in Taiwan, and in Latin America). Their online catalogues of chant sources, the Cantus Database (https://cantusdatabase.org/) and the Cantus Index (https://cantusindex.org/), have made their research freely available to anyone in the world. During this day, they will provide an overview of the digital study of plainchant and conduct a practical workshop on using the Cantus Database. Specifically, they will instruct participants on how to use these tools and how to contribute materials (descriptions, inventories, genres of chant, and transcription of chant melodies using the simple Volpiano notation) to the online catalogues. They will also discuss the resources required for setting up such an online repository and using these tools in the classroom––in courses on music history, on the history of religion, and on the study of manuscripts. Later in the day, Jennifer Bain will discuss issues of data security, an essential concern for any digital project.
9:00am–12:00pm: General introduction to the digital study of plainchant
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Tool-based workshop on using the Cantus Database in teaching and research
6:00pm–7:00pm: Talk on understanding data security
Analyzing Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint with Computers; Using CRIM (R. Freedman)
Most Renaissance settings of the Mass Ordinary movements (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) are based on other musical works or models, including chansons, madrigals, and motets. Citations: The Renaissance Imitation Mass (CRIM) project (https://crimproject.org/) provides a corpus of scores of masses and their models, as PDFs and as symbolic music files. It also provides multiple digital tools for analyzing the models and the masses, and the relationships between them. Richard Freedman has involved many students and scholars from all over Europe and North America in the project, and in this day’s activities he will introduce the digital study of sixteenth-century counterpoint and lead a workshop on how to use CRIM, first explaining how to use the software analysis tools, and then aiding small groups in producing their own analyses. The day will end with a session on using the tools in the classroom for teaching both undergraduate and graduate students.
9:00am–12:00pm: General session on analyzing sixteenth-century counterpoint with computers.
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Tool-based workshop on using CRIM in teaching and research
Computer Tools for Transcribing Mensural Notation; Using Measuring Polyphony (K. Desmond and M. Thomae)
Karen Desmond and Martha Thomae are the leaders of the Measuring Polyphony project (https://measuringpolyphony.org/), which allows users to transcribe polyphonic music notated in separate parts in fourteenth-century notation into modern scores encoded in the symbolic format known as MEI (Music Encoding Initiative). The rhythmic notation of this period is highly context dependent (the length of any note value depends on the notes that precede and follow it). Working directly with images of the original manuscripts, users can copy the notes into the program, which will interpret the note values and copy the parts together in score. This is a wonderful way to learn the earlier practice of notation and to understand complex music of the past. Thus, in this session, participants will learn about machine-assisted analysis of mensural notation and how to use Measuring Polyphony in the classroom with both undergraduate and graduate students studying music history, poetry of the period, and early forms of counterpoint and composition of polyphonic music.
9:00am–12:00pm: General session on computer tools for studying mensural notation
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Tool-based workshop on using Measuring Polyphony
Music and Poetry Online; Using Tasso in Music (E. Ricciardi and C. Sapp)
The Tasso in Music project brings together the poetry of the late-sixteenth-century poet Torquato Tasso and all the surviving musical settings of his poetry. The scores are typeset in MEI (Music Encoding Initiative), but are available in multiple notation formats. This makes it possible to see multiple settings of the same text; to search text and music; and to find information on vocal ranges, pitch histograms, and some aspects of the style of musical setting (e.g., homorhythm and melismas). Emiliano Ricciardi and Craig Sapp will explain the challenges of studying Tasso’s poetry and how/why they created the Tasso in Music project, and the many decisions and difficulties they encountered in the process. Participants will then have a chance to use the project tools to address specific research questions. The day will also include an exploration of how to use the Tasso in Music project in graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Furthermore, Craig Sapp, who has provided technical and conceptual support for multiple digital projects (including Tasso in Music, the Josquin Research Project, and Measuring Polyphony) will provide guidance for those wishing to assemble the required infrastructure for a large digital musicology project.
9:00am–12:00pm: General session on Tasso and the study of music and poetry with digital tools
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Tool-based workshop on Tasso in Music project
6:00pm–7:00pm: Infrastructure for digital humanities projects
Corpus Studies and Feature Extraction; Using jSymbolic (C. McKay and J. Cumming)
Cory McKay’s software application jSymbolic is a flexible tool designed to extract statistical information about musical features from symbolic music files (such as MIDI, MEI, or MusicXML). The tool extracts 246 unique musical features according to pitch, melody, melodic intervals, chords, vertical intervals, rhythm, instrumentation, texture, and dynamics. By extracting musical features from a work or a group of works (a corpus or dataset), jSymbolic allows scholars to compare works to each other and answer research questions about style, chronology, or authenticity. McKay and Cumming have used the tool to compare genres and to evaluate the authenticity of works attributed to Josquin des Prez. McKay has also used jSymbolic in his research on national styles of composition and on the attribution of anonymous music. McKay and Cumming will provide guidelines for assembling corpora of scores that are consistent in their approach to encoding, and will show participants how to answer their own research questions with jSymbolic. The day will end with a discussion of how best to use the tool in the classroom.
9:00am–12:00pm: General session on corpus studies and feature extraction
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–4:00pm: Tool-based workshop on using jSymbolic in classroom and research
Free day for reading, reflection, rest, or exploration
Building a Digital Musicology Project (I. Fujinaga)
The first day of the second week will be devoted to lectures by additional leaders in the field. Ichiro Fujinaga, who is currently leading his second multimillion dollar digital musicology initiative, will provide guidance on developing a project, putting together a team, and applying for support. In the afternoon, he will continue with a workshop on identifying funding for digital humanities programs.
9:00am–12:00pm: Building a Digital Musicology Project (I. Fujinaga)
12:00pm–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30pm–3:00pm: Identifying funding and tackling administrative challenges for large-scale digital humanities projects (I. Fujinaga)
During most of the second week of the institute, participants will break into two groups based on their specific professional interests. The first stream will focus on using existing tools to teach music history and solve real-world pedagogical challenges. The second stream will focus on helping participants to learn the computational skills most useful for studying early music and imagining ways those skills can be used in research and teaching.
Stream 1: Incorporating Digital Musicology into the Undergraduate Classroom (R. Freedman and
R. Wissner)
Richard Freedman and Reba Wissner have both utilized digital musicology tools in their undergraduate classrooms with great success. Freedman has involved undergraduates in the CRIM project at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where students are pursuing original research and developing new digital tools for the project. Reba Wissner teaches the use of music notation software, AI, and other technologies in her classrooms at the Schwob School of Music of Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Her approach allows students to understand both the strengths and weaknesses of these new technologies. Both Freedman and Wissner provide students with experiences and skills that will be useful in multiple fields after graduation. They have developed lesson plans for their students, and will work with the participants on building their own lesson plans that incorporate digital technology into music programs.
Stream 2: Developing a Digital Musicology Project (M. Long and C. White)
Chris White and Megan Kaes Long will help participants develop digital projects related to their research interests. White and Long have a history of working together on their own digital projects; White is the expert on the technological aspect, while Long has a history of working on corpus projects and developing research projects around Renaissance music. The first few days will focus on participants choosing and creating a digital corpus. The last few days will concentrate on using tools discussed in the previous week (such as the CRIM tools, or jSymbolic) to answer participants’ research questions in relation to their corpus. These projects have the potential to develop into publications and larger research projects going forward.