| |
|
date
|
people
|
research
|
funded
outcomes
|
teaching
aids
|
| 1998-9 |
Antony
Pitts,
Christopher Cook
|
musical
lifecycle - from inspiration to reception |
Of
Sound Mind (BBC Radio 3)
radio documentary |
|
| 1999 |
Antony
Pitts with many others |
timeline
of music history |
The
Unfinished Symphony (BBC Radio 3)
18-hour broadcast for New Year's Eve 1999
|
|
| 2000-2001 |
Antony
Pitts |
interactive
musical timeline |
A
Musical Timeline (BBC website)
|
|
| 2002-2005 |
Antony
Pitts |
Music
in 12 Parts - two distinct,
but related pathways for exploring the three dimensions of music
- Melody, Harmony (and Colour), Rhythm
(and Shape), and the lifecycle of a piece of music
- the Mission, the History, the Idea, the
Look, the Feel, the Style, and the Sound.
Aim: To chart the lifecycle of a piece of music from the original
idea or inspiration (in the mind of the composer), through the
process of its being written down, performed and recorded, to
the listener’s experience and memory of it.
|
|
|
| July
– September 2005 |
Antony
Pitts |
commissioned
by the RAM to produce a demonstration model of the outcomes
of part of this research with a view to using it as a teaching
aid.
Aim:
1 – To sort and link content into a musical timeline;
Aim:
2 – To categorize pages according to seven key stages in the
journey of music “from inspiration to appreciation” – idea,
composer, score, performer, sound,
audience, history.
etymology
The
name RAMline was chosen for this practical expression of the
research hosted by the Royal Academy of Music.
\Ram"line\, n. A line used to get a straight middle line, as on a spar,
or from stem to stern in building a vessel. (Webster’s Revised
Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.)
ramify • \RAM-uh-fye\ • verb
intransitive verb
1 : to split up into branches or constituent parts*
2 : to send forth branches or extensions
transitive
verb
1
: to cause to branch
2
: to separate into divisions
“Ramify” has been part of English since the 15th century and
is an offshoot of the Latin word for “branch,” which is “ramus.”.....“Ramify”
started out as a scientific word, at first referring to branching
parts of plants and trees and later to veins and nerves. But
it soon branched out into non-scientific and even figurative
uses, as in “ideas that ramify throughout society”. (Merriam-Webster
OnLine)
Resources
About
Music
linked
in
networked
encyclopedia
|
RAMline
model (Royal Academy of Music)
|
|
| January
– July 2006 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater |
concept
developed as part of personal research with some spin-off teaching
aids - this research to be submitted as part of the RAE
(2008).
Inspired by the cognitive spectrum model from David Gelernter’s
paradigm-shifting work outlined in The Muse in the Machine
(Free Press, 1994) we have sought to identify ways of allowing
and encouraging both focused searching for information or resources
relating to a specific event, person, or musical work, and browsing
via affect or thematic links.
It was recognized that the principles being laid down as part
of the research would be applicable outside the musical world
to a more general mapping of the history of ideas of all kinds.
Aim: To build a unique multi-dimensional index of digitized
archives and online resources, together with a specialized tool
that allows this index to be browsed and searched intuitively.
As well as an ever-expanding catalogue of musicians and of musical
works, the RAMline should be able to link to manuscript sources
and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical
criticism and comment. The RAMline is both a timeline of musical
history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity
to the present.
|
RAMline
(Royal Academy of Music)
The funded outcomes of the RAMline research project are hugely
ambitious – it aims to bring together all of the Academy’s
internal and external resources, and will offer a completely
new way of looking at music history, serving as a unique learning
and research tool for students, scholars, and music-lovers.
The starting-point for the RAMline was that it should
be at the same time a chronological and a functional index
of Music – primarily musicians and musical works. As an index,
its purpose is to bring together existing and new resources
(internal and external), and to be a research tool, a
teaching tool, and media scheduling tool for staff, students
and new audiences alike.
|
York
Gate Faculty Showcase E-Learning at the Academy
(29 March 2006) with Jeremy Summerly |
| August
– September 2006 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater,
Hannah Riddell |
Participants
during a year-long process of formal and informal consultation
and internal workshops included the Academy’s scientist-in-residence
Vincent Walsh, the Head of Academic Studies Jeremy Summerly,
the Librarian Kathy Adamson, the Collections Registrar Janet
Snowman, and the Research Co-ordinator David Gorton. Workshops
also took place with external developers.
(selected) fundamental RAMline concepts
A ramline can only display EVENTS.
Each EVENT can link to other TOPICS and to one or more online
or physical RESOURCES.
On the x axis of the RAMline EVENTS are displayed according
to DATES which may be single points, begin/end points,
spans, periods etc.
On the y axis EVENTS are displayed according to CAUSE&EFFECT
rôle
(inspiration via composer to score
via performer to sound via audience
to reception-history).
Any TOPIC can have a ramline. Therefore a RESOURCE can
have a ramline via its EVENT.
The RAMline has two SPECIAL TOPICS:
1. ENTITIES – people or organizations
who have one or more of three CAUSE&EFFECT rôles
– composing, performing, or listening
to Music;
2. WORKS – musical works which exist in one or
more of four CAUSE&EFFECT rôles –
idea, score, performance, reception.
A CAUSE&EFFECT relationship (which is generally
a pairing of two allied CAUSE&EFFECT rôles, e.g.
composer/score) exists between an ENTITY
and a WORK, and vice-versa (e.g. J.S.Bach composed the
score of A Musical Offering; and A Musical
Offering was composed by J.S.Bach) but not
between two or more different ENTITIES or between two or more
different WORKS.
|
RAMline
(Royal Academy of Music)
The aim of the RAMline is to draw together all research and
professional musical activity taking place within or closely-linked
to the Academy, and to place it within a much wider context
– linking creativity in composition, editing, performing, recording,
listening, and commentating. |
|
| October
– November 2006 |
Antony
Pitts,
Hannah Riddell |
detailed
functional timeline of J.S.Bach's Musical Offering mapped
out, based on H. Riddell's Masters
Thesis A
Reception Study of J.S. Bach's Musical Offering (BWV 1079)
|
RAMline
(Royal Academy of Music, Teaching and Research Award from the
University of London’s Centre for Distance Education)
Engagement with external technical consultants began in the
spring of 2006, and led via a tender process to the engagement
of Artemis and sub-contractor NetworkedPlanet in November 2006.
|
York
Gate Education Workshop
(22 November 2006) |
| December
2006 – February 2007 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater,
Hannah Riddell |
During
an intense period of further workshops with Kal Ahmed from NetworkedPlanet
the fully-detailed ontology for the RAMline was designed and
built both on paper and as a Topic Map |
RAMline
Phase 1: creation of RAMline ontology
(Royal Academy of Music, Teaching and Research
Award from the University of London’s Centre for Distance Education)
The engine underneath the RAMline – TMCore information management solution – uses Topic Maps,
an innovative approach to Information Architecture and Management.
The TMCore server stores and manages ‘topic
maps’ of the entire content of the RAMline. Topics hold information
about themselves, links to related documents and links to other
topics, creating a map of knowledge. This map can be browsed
or searched by end-users to find information resources via key
concepts. The result is a detailed index of the information
resources across a number of systems via a single unified information
portal.
Kal Ahmed, Founder of NetworkedPlanet: “The scale and nature
of this project are ideal to demonstrate fully the benefits
of topic maps. As the index grows, navigation becomes more
and more problematic, especially considering much of the content
is stored in different locations. Adding topic maps to each
resource – either when it is created or when its details are
imported into the system – allows extra metadata properties
to be attached to it, such as genre, date or city. A detailed
‘map’ can then be created between this metadata, allowing rapid
navigation according to keywords, relationships and themes.
|
|
| March
– August 2007 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater,
Hannah Riddell
|
research
into musical, ontological, historical, and technical aspects
of the project, including viewer code and detailed concepts |
RAMline
Phase 1 (Royal Academy of Music, Teaching and Research Award
from the University of London’s Centre for Distance Education)
Topic Map technology installed at the Academy; RAMline editor
and viewer developed.
|
The
pilot RAMline site
used in Creative Technology classes at the Royal Academy of
Music |
| September
2007 - May 2009 |
Hannah
Riddell,
John
Drinkwater,
Antony Pitts
|
|
|
Rewriting
History new Academic Elective
at the Royal Academy of Music using the RAMline as a
primary teaching aid
Student involvement with the RAMline is intended to be direct,
proactive (along the lines of Wikipedia authoring), and to interact
with most parts of their educational journey. This will be
achieved in due course by making this approach part of mandatory
coursework, and by incorporating all Academy Events into the
RAMline. To kick-start this process, a new Academic Elective
– Rewriting History – has been designed.
Rewriting
History is a course in which students are challenged to reassess
how music history is documented through interaction with the
RAMline. They will consider how research is carried out using
other online resources including RAM collections, Grove-online,
JSTOR, RILM, and COPAC; and subsequently discover how the RAMline
enables us to capture and to map the links between people, works,
events, concepts, locations, and resources. Ultimately, this
perception will prompt the students to place themselves in historical
context as composer, performer, and/or audience.
|
| Friday
9 November 2007 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater,
Hannah Riddell |
|
Rewriting Musical History
Opening
the Creative Studio 3
(funded by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council ICT Methods Network) |
The
third research day of the Opening the Creative Studio
series will focus on digital resources that allow musicians
to
create their own personal trace through sources and events.
Tim Crawford and Geraint Wiggins will present recent work from
the Intelligent Sound and Music Systems Group (Goldsmith's
College), whereas Antony Pitts, Hannah Riddell, and John
Drinkwater will discuss the Academy's innovative RAMline
-
a unique multi-dimensional index of people and musical works,
linking to digitized archives and online resources.
admission: FREE
venue: Piano Gallery
Royal Academy of Music
Marylebone Road
London NW1 5HT
Royal Academy of Music events: http://www.ram.ac.uk/events
|
| Friday 4 April 2008 |
Antony
Pitts,
John Drinkwater,
Hannah Riddell |
Rewriting Musical History
The Second International Topic Maps Users Conference, Oslo NORWAY
"The RAMline is a unique multi-dimensional index of music and musicians linked to local digitized archives and other online resources, such as manuscript sources and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical criticism and comment. This index can be used to display a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity to the present, as well as to chart musical profiles of individuals and organizations. It is multi-dimensional in that the index can be explored from the perspectives of people, works, places, events, and dates; it is unique in that the connections between musicians and musical works are categorized in a rigorous yet flexible ontology which makes sense of the processes and products involved."
Topic Maps 2008
Topic Maps 2008 programme
|
|
|
| Monday 21 July 2008 |
Antony
Pitts |
Rewriting Musical History
International Association of Music Libraries Annual Conference, Naples, ITALY
The first public airing of the "musicDNA" name and concept.
"The RAMline is currently installed as a prototype at the Royal Academy of Music. Directly based on multi-disciplinary research by Antony Pitts, John Drinkwater, and Hannah Riddell, the RAMline is a unique multi-dimensional index of music and musicians linked to local digitized archives and other online resources, such as manuscript sources and published editions, live performances and recordings, musical criticism and comment. This index can be used to display a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from antiquity to the present, as well as to chart musical profiles of individuals and organizations. It is multi-dimensional in that the index can be explored from the perspectives of people, works, places, events, and dates; it is unique in that the connections between musicians and musical works are categorized in a rigorous yet flexible ontology which makes sense of the processes and products involved."
IAML 2008
|
|
|
| Friday 3 October 2008 |
Hannah Riddell,
Antony
Pitts |
|
|
A Virtual Map of Musical History
"Hannah Riddell and Antony Pitts discuss their work on the Academy's RAMline project, now in its second phase of development and dubbed by www.overgrownpath.com as 'Google Earth for classical music'. The event will demonstrate how new computer technology can capture musical connections between people, works, events and resources."
Google Earth for classical music?
admission: FREE
venue: Piano Gallery
Royal Academy of Music
Marylebone Road
London NW1 5HT
Royal Academy of Music events: http://www.ram.ac.uk/events
|
| Thursday 20 November 2008 |
Kal Ahmed, Antony Pitts |
Mapping the DNA of Musical History
XML Holland 2008, Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
"The RAMline is a unique topic map-based multi-dimensional index of music and musicians linked to online and offline resources; it can be used to display a timeline of musical history and the life-cycle of any piece of music, from any genre or period, and to chart the musical profiles of individuals and organizations."
Mapping the DNA of Musical History [resource expired]
|
|
|
| Monday 9 February 2009 |
Antony Pitts |
|
|
A Brief History of the RAMline
Research in Distance Education: from present findings to future agendas, Centre for Distance Education, University of London
A Brief History of the RAMline [resource expired]
A Brief History of the RAMline [resource expired]
|
| July 2009 |
|
musicDNA
musicDNA is the name for both an ontology and a number of user interface concepts which together allow the mapping of the musical universe - the essential structure of musical events and resources in terms of human activity - in order to be able to visualize and navigate through this powerfully rich semantic space.
musicDNA is currently provided by joint partners Pensive SA and musicDNA Ltd. In collaboration with a third partner, NetworkedPlanet, musicDNA will open up a new way of creating social objects from music, musicians, and music-making:
www.musicdna.info
|
|
|
| September 2009 |
|
musicGPS
musicGPS 1.0 released in the iTunes App Store:
http://itunes.com/apps/musicgps
http://www.musicdna.info/musicGPS.aspx
|
|
|
| February 2010 |
|
musicDNA Ltd
musicDNA Ltd registered in the UK.
http://www.musicdna.co.uk
|
|
|
| April 2010 |
|
musicGPS
musicGPS 2.0 released in the iTunes App Store:
http://itunes.com/apps/musicgps
http://www.musicdna.info/musicGPS.aspx
|
|
|
|
|
