Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Humdrum?

Humdrum is a set of general-purpose software tools intended to assist music researchers in posing and answering research questions. Humdrum allows researchers to encode, manipulate, and output a wide variety of musically-pertinent representations. The emphasis is on posing and answering questions about music.

Humdrum is not (1) a MIDI sequencer, (2) a music printing package, or (3) a computer sound synthesis language; however, Humdrum provides tools that allow limited MIDI, notation, and Csound connectivity.

Humdrum allows users to pose and answer questions such as the following:

• In Stravinsky, are dissonances more common in strong metric positions than in weak metric positions?
• Is there evidence of greater metric syncopation in later Gershwin than in early Gershwin?
• What passages of the original `Salve Regina' antiphon are preserved in the settings by Tomas Luis de Victoria?
• In Urdu folk songs, how common is the so-called "melodic arch" -- where phrases tend to ascend and then descend in pitch?
• Which of the Brandenburg Concertos contains the B-A-C-H motif?
• What are the most common fret-board patterns in guitar riffs by Jimi Hendrix?
• Which of two English translations of Schubert lyrics best preserves the vowel coloration of the original German?
• After the V-I progression, which harmonic progression is most apt to employ a suspension?
• In what harmonic contexts does Händel double the leading-tone?
• Are crescendos in Wagner more strongly associated with rising pitch than is the case for other composers?
• Which of several MIDI performances displays the greatest contrast in dynamics between the initial thematic statement and the thematic return?

2. Can you say more?

"Humdrum" is actually two things: (1) the Humdrum Syntax and (2) the Humdrum Toolkit.

The Humdrum Syntax is a grammar for representing sequential symbolic information using ASCII (text) data. Note that "Humdrum" is not a representation scheme in the conventional sense -- like DARMS. Humdrum is a syntax within which an endless number of representation schemes can be defined. Theoretically, any type of sequential symbolic data may be accommodated -- such as square notation, Schenkerian graphs, piano fingerings, changes of emotional states, MIDI data, acoustic spectra, North Indian tabla bols, ballet steps, concurrent television schedules, or industrial chemical processes.

3. What can Humdrum do?

Humdrum's capabilities are quite abstract, and so it is difficult to characterize briefly what it can do.

Humdrum can encode information in various forms, such as French lute tablatures, conducting gestures, or structural relationships. It can transform, classify, coordinate, transfer, restructure, contextualize, and otherwise manipulate both pre-defined and user-defined information.

Humdrum can be used to search for a mind-boggling variety of types of patterns. For example, you can look for specific finger-fret combinations (independent of the string, say) in a work for Indian sitar. Or you can look for particular patterns of open and closed vowels in vocal lyrics that are associated with a certain melodic contour, and are also anchored to a specified metrical context.

Humdrum is also able to characterize the similarity between various types of information according to user-defined criteria of similarity.

Humdrum's search and similarity commands are generalized software tools that are independent of any given representation. As a consequence, these tools do not impose any pre-defined notions of what you might want to search for, or what properties you wish to compare.

4. Who will benefit from using Humdrum?

Humdrum will be of potential benefit to anyone wishing to pursue systematic investigations of musical information. This includes the posing of "factual" questions about music, and the testing of hypotheses about musical organization.

In short, Humdrum may prove valuable to music theorists, music analysts, ethnomusicologists, historical musicologists, psychomusicologists, music librarians, dance scholars, linguists, and people who have a general interest in music.

Humdrum is less well suited to individuals involved in creative (i.e. generative) musical activities -- such as composition, conducting, or performance. However, Humdrum is well suited to studying compositions, conducting, performances ...

5. What computer systems does Humdrum run on?

Humdrum was designed for the UNIX operating system. It runs on a variety of UNIX systems including Linux, HPUX, NeXTSTEP, etc. It also runs under Windows '95, Windows '98, Windows NT, DOS and OS/2 -- provided basic UNIX commands are available. For example, Humdrum runs on Microsoft systems that have installed either the `MKS Toolkit', or the Consensys Corporation `Portage' utilities. Humdrum has also been installed and used on Apple computer systems (see below).

6. Does Humdrum run on Macintosh systems?

Mac OS 8/9

7. How can I get a copy of Humdrum?

8. How can I access Humdrum via FTP?

9. What is the current version of Humdrum?

The current official distribution for Humdrum is Version 1.0.

Humdrum continues to be up-dated by adding options to some tools, fixing bugs, and augmenting the Toolkit with new commands. More recent versions exist -- up to Version 2.6, however, these versions are not official distributions. In order for a version to be designated "official," we test all of the tools using extensive test suites on a wide variety of hardware platforms, running different operating systems, and using different compilers. This is a time-consuming process and can be done only when we have funds to hire a programmer for about a month.

When making modifications to Humdrum, we don't know whether the modifications we have made are fully portable to other systems. Without full-scale testing of the software on a variety of platforms, it is not a good idea to replace the former distributed version. Hence the discrepancy between the "official" version and more current versions. Users are free to use later versions, but we are not as confident that these later versions have the same portability as version 1.0.

10. How do I install Humdrum on my machine?

11. How can I get a copy of Humdrum if I don't have HTTP access?

12. Does it cost money?

The Humdrum Toolkit software itself is "free" -- but remains protected by copyright. If you order Humdrum by mail, you will be asked to pay for the cost of the disks, documentation, and mailing. On FTP the software is available without charge.

13. How big is the Humdrum Toolkit?

The size of Release 1.0 is about 7 megabytes when uncompressed. This includes printable postscript files for the manuals (approximately 3 megabytes). The postscript files may be deleted after installation.

14. What does the Toolkit include?

The Humdrum Toolkit includes some 60 software tools, demonstration software, a selection of about 150 musical scores, an Installation Guide, and a Reference Manual.

15. What's contained in the Reference Manual?

The Humdrum Toolkit Reference Manual provides technical descriptions of representation formats, file organizations, command invocations, options, and other features for Release 1.0. The documentation includes sections on:

• Humdrum General Introduction (35 pages)
• Humdrum Representation Reference (180 pages)
• Humdrum Command Reference (260 pages)
• Regular Expression Reference (18 pages)
• Software Development Reference (15 pages)
• Bibliography (8 pages)
• Index (25 pages)

16. Is source code included in the distribution?

Yes.

About 15% of the code is written in C, another 15% in kornshell, and about 2% using the LEX lexical parser and YACC compiler-compiler. The bulk of the code is written in AWK (a fast prototyping language). C is used for tools that have special I/O requirements and to accelerate some computationally intensive tools.

17. How do you represent, say, a quarter-note in Humdrum?

The question is mal-formed. Humdrum doesn't dictate how to represent such things as a quarter-note. Remember, that Humdrum is a syntax within which representations can be defined. Users are free to use whatever string of ASCII characters they want in order represent a quarter-note. The only restriction is that the representation must conform to the Humdrum Syntax.

18. If that's so, how do users exchange data?

Actually, there are a large number of pre-defined representations each conforming to the Humdrum Syntax. Users aren't required to use these pre-existing representations, but they are generally more convenient than starting from scratch. Think of these predefined representations as analogous to macro packages.

Each representation conforming to the Humdrum Syntax is given a unique name, preceded by two asterisks. For example, "**freq" is a pre-defined representation used to represent frequency; "**pcset" is a pre-defined representation used to represent pitch-class sets; "**cocho" is a pre-defined representation used to represent basilar-membrance coordinates in the cochlea. There are lots of these pre-defined representations.

To answer the previous question: in the "**recip" representation, quarter-notes are represented by the ASCII numeral "4" (the reciprocal of the American duration names). But remember, HUMDRUM, does not require you to represent quarter-notes this way. Only the "**recip" representation requires this. If you prefer "crotchet" to "quarter note", Humdrum obliges.

19. Can you show an example of how to encode a piece of music in Humdrum?

Still not catching on. There are an infinite number of ways of representing a piece in the Humdrum format -- it depends on what sort of information the user is interested in. Some users will be interested in stem-direction and size of note-heads. Other users will be interested in representing the valve-combinations for the trumpet part.

For example, here is an encoding of a complete sonata-allegro movement that conforms to the Humdrum syntax:

**form

Introduction

Exposition

Development

Recapitulation

Coda

*-

20. Okay, how might you encode the pitch and duration for a piece of music?

21. What kinds of representations are pre-defined in Humdrum?

There are currently independent pre-defined representations for such data as: pitch, frequency, MIDI, cents, semitones, pitch-class, German Tonhoene, French solfege, chroma, absolute and relative scale degree, fretted-instrument tablatures, figured bass, functional harmony, embellishment tones, melodic accent, harmonic and melodic intervals, sensory dissonance, dates, elapsed duration, time-spans, metric position, sequential event ordering, canonical note durations, metric syncopation, beat-position, time, rhythmic prototypes, parametric and non-parametric similarity, sound pressure level, relative amplitude, spectral content, spectral centroid, dynamics, pitch-class set, normal form, interval vectors, textual underlay, plus many others.

Remember that users are free to concoct their own task-specific representations -- such as a scheme to represent Telugu notation or Dagomba dance. Humdrum representations may be very highly crafted, or they may be invented in a matter of seconds. It is common to generate "throw-away" representations that are used only for a single research task.

22. How much music is encoded in Humdrum?

There are currently roughly 10,000 encoded works consistent with the Humdrum syntax -- most in the **kern representation.

23. What sort of repertoires are encoded?

Gregorian chant, Cantigas de Santa Maria, School of Notre Dame polyphony, vocal works by Machaut, Morley, Dunstable, Power, Schubert, Brahms, Weber, Foster. Traditional British folk ballads, Kentucky folk organum, Barbershop quartets, hymns; instrumental works by JC Bach, JS Bach, WF Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Buono, Buxtehude, Corelli, Chopin, Clementi, David, Debussy, Dowland, Dvorak, Fischer, Franck, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Gabrieli, Granados, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Josquin, Liszt, Mattheson, Mendelssohn, Merulo, Mozart, Nielsen, Pachelbel, Reger, Scheidt, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Soriano, Sweelinck, Telemann, Webern, Weckmann.

24. Are all of these repertoires available?

No. Some of the encoded data are proprietary or restricted by copyright and so not likely to be released in the near future. About 6,500 encoded works are available.

25. Who else produces Humdrum databases?

26. Can other musical databases be accessed using Humdrum?

Currently, there are a handful of software tools that translate from various formats to Humdrum. Music encoded in Leland Smith's SCORE format can be translated to Humdrum using a program written by Andreas Kornstaedt of the University of Hamburg. Music encoded in Helmut Schaffrath's ESAC representation (Essen Associative Code) can also be translated to Humdrum. Another program can translate Barry Brook's Plaine and Easie Code (used by RILM) to Humdrum.

These translation tools are not currently distributed as part of the Humdrum Toolkit. They are available by special request.

27. What do the Humdrum software tools do?

Nearly all Humdrum commands accept some Humdrum-format input(s) and produce some corresponding Humdrum-format output. This means that information can be processed through a series of successive Humdrum commands.

28. Can you provide some examples of Humdrum processes?

Here are some examples of simple Humdrum pipelines.

The following command extracts all woodwind parts from the file "ives":

extract -i '*ICww' ives

extract -i '*Latin' office* | egrep -ic 'lum.+n[e]*$'

deg -x machaut | grep -n '7.*7'

semits -xt wagner | fill > temp
assemble wagner temp | grep -n '}.*-1[^0-9]'

solfa -x input | fill -s = | grep '.*6-.*4+' | grep '3-' [German]
solfa -x input | fill -s = | grep '.*6-.*4+' | grep '2' [French]
solfa -x input | fill -s = | grep '.*6-.*4+' | grep '[^23]' [Italian]

P5
P5

extract -i '*bass,*alto' caccini | hint -c | pattern -s = -f template

=
.* +
sus

extract -i '**embel' bwv552 | patt -e -f template | grep '='

pc opus24 | fill -s = | pcset | grep 'Z' | sort | uniq

matrix -n 12 prime
rowfind opus24

yank -o ^= '$-1-$' * | midi | perform

29. Can I search for a specific theme or motif?

Yes. There are innumerable ways of defining a "theme" or "motif." Typically, motives are thought of as pitch/duration patterns. However, motivic instances typically appear at different pitch heights, in transpositions, different modes, in augmentation, and so on. Hence, a motif might be better defined as an interval/duration pattern, or as an interval/relative-duration pattern, or as a diatonic interval pattern, a pitch-contour pattern, a metric pattern, etc. Searching for any such patterns is trivial using Humdrum. Most such searches can be accomplished by executing a one-line shell-level command.

Humdrum also allows the user to constrain pattern searches by looking for combinations of information. For example, the user might seek only those pitch patterns that exhibit certain sequences of articulation marks, are anchored in some specified way to a phrase boundary, and/or are accompanied by certain harmonies.

Pattern searches need not be melodically oriented (horizontal search). Searches can also be vertical, or even diagonal (e.g. a Klangfarbenmelodie -- a melody that traverses between several instruments). Patterns may also be combinations of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. For example, find all instances of a lowered seventh based a subdominant root approaching a V chord, when the oboe and bassoon are playing, but not at the beginning of a phrase.

In addition to exact pattern matches, Humdrum provides tools that allow matches with passages that are similar but not identical to the sought pattern. Patterns can be sought in which embellishments have been added to specified structural elements. Patterns of patterns, and patterns of patterns of patterns can be studied.

30. Does Humdrum import/export MIDI?

Yes. Humdrum can important MIDI data via the `record' and `encode' commands. `Record' allows the recording of raw MIDI data in the Humdrum format. `Encode' permits the user to map real-time MIDI activity to any user-defined Humdrum representation.

Humdrum can export MIDI data via the `smf' and `perform' commands. `smf' is used to generate Standard Midi Files which can be imported to other applications software -- such as MIDI sequencers or notation packages. The `perform' command plays Humdrum-format MIDI information in real-time.

In order to use the Humdrum MIDI capabilities, you must have access to an MPU-401 compatible MIDI card. Currently, the Humdrum MIDI tools only work under DOS, Windows 95/98/NT, and Linux..

31. Does Humdrum import/export Finale?

32. Can Humdrum do automatic Roman-numeral type harmonic analysis?

Not currently. A program to do automatic functional analysis is being developed by Craig Sapp.

33. What else can't Humdrum do?

34. Does Humdrum provide a graphic user interface?

A general graphic user interface for Humdrum has been developed by Michael Taylor of Queen's University, Belfast. The Taylor interface features pull-down help menus and on-line assistance in constructing and launching analytic tasks. The Taylor interface runs under MS Windows. Distribution and pricing arrangements have not yet been announced. Mr. Taylor may be reached at: wmt@bfs.Unibol.com

35. Is Humdrum easy to use?

Humdrum is rooted in the UNIX "software tools" design philosophy. That is, each tool in the toolkit carries out a simple operation. However, by interconnecting the tools, the capacity for music processing is legion. In essence, assembling Humdrum command lines amounts to a form of computer programming. Learning Humdrum is comparable in complexity to learning a programming language such as pascal or C.

36. Why should I consider using Humdrum?

The principal reasons for using computers in music scholarship are the following:

1. the computer increases your scholarly productivity,
2. the computer lets you address problems that are otherwise impossible to pursue.

37. I am a PC user who has had no experience with UNIX.

Understanding UNIX is an essential pre-requisite to the lucid use of Humdrum. If you do not have access to a UNIX system, you can purchase a set of commercial UNIX utilities that will operate on your PC. The recommended utilities are available in the "MKS Toolkit" -- which you can purchase in most university computer stores. (In the case of Windows NT, Humdrum should also work under Consensys Corporation's "Portage".)

The essential foundation for using Humdrum includes:

1. knowledge of how to use a text editor -- such as "vi" or "emacs"
2. knowledge of how to define and manipulate "regular expressions" (a standard UNIX syntax for defining patterns)
3. knowledge of how to read and interpret manual pages ("man")
4. familiarity with UNIX "pipelines"

Wordprocessors can be used in lieu of an editor, provided ASCII text is handled properly. Many wordprocessors treat carriage returns and tabs in irregular ways -- although most wordprocessors allow the user to override these defaults. For example, Microsoft Word can be used provided you invoke the "save as text file" option.

Note that Microsoft "edit" (comes with DOS) is unsuitable for Humdrum since it insists on replacing ASCII tabs by spaces.

38. Where can I see Humdrum in action?

A 50-minute VHS videotape is available that demonstrates many of the types of manipulations that can be carried out using the Humdrum Toolkit. The videotape is available in the North American NTSC format only, and can be ordered for minimal cost.

39. Are there any seminars or courses that teach Humdrum?

Humdrum seminars have been offered at several universities. A two-day Humdrum seminar will be given at Stanford University from April 15th and 16th, 1999.

For further information contact:

40. Where does Humdrum come from?

Humdrum was designed and originally programmed by David Huron. The Humdrum Toolkit was extensively revised and augmented with the assistance of Tim Racinsky and Kyle Dawkins.

41. How can I be kept informed about Humdrum?

"Humdrum News" is an electronic newsletter for Humdrum users and those contemplating using the Humdrum Toolkit. The newsletter contains regular announcements, brief articles, and tutorials describing various ways of using the toolkit. Subscriptions are free.

Both snail-mail and e-mail mailing lists are maintained. You can receive direct information concerning Humdrum by sending your name, address, and e-mail address to hüron.1@osü.edü (please ignore the umlauts: they are present to foil web crawlers).

If you are reading this document in printed form and have no access to electronic mail, you can send the above information to: