WITCHCRAFT

Introduction

The WITCHCRAFT project sets as its objective to develop a fully functional content-based retrieval system for folksong melodies stored as audio and notation, building on the best practices of Music Information Retrieval research. Its most important goals are:

• the design of music similarity measures that are based on models of music cognition and perception;
• the creation of a search tool that is integrated in the Nederlandse Liederenbank and provides access for scholars and the general public to the folksong collection of Onder de Groene Linde, taking into account the problem of oral variation;
• to support the testing of hypotheses about oral transmission of folk songs;
• to design a music information retrieval system that is suitable for other large music collections.

The participants in the WITCHCRAFT project are:

• Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Utrecht University, in particular the Electronic Document Technology and Multimedia and Geometry groups.
• Meertens Instituut, the cultural heritage institution that hosts the Nederlandse Liederenbank and Onder de Groene Linde.
• Theater Instituut Nederland, the owner of a large collection of written and recorded popular songs.

The researchers working on this project are:

• Jörg Garbers
• Louis Peter Grijp
• Peter van Kranenburg
• Anja Volk
• Remco Veltkamp
• Frans Wiering

Project descriptions

• Abstract, Dutch
• Short description, English
• Long description, English

Search Engines

• Yahmuugle: current version of our demo music retrieval application
• Yahmuugle with the interface redesigned by Bas de Haas
• Musipedia keyboard interface for searching OGL
• Orpheus: one of Rainer Typke's experimental search engines, giving limited access to RSM A/II

Nederlandse Liederenbank

• Nederlandse Liederenbank: official version, no melody search
• Nederlandse Liederenbank: experimental version with search links for some melodies
• Online melody entry for Liederenbank

• The WITCHCRAFT Baseline Measurement And Pilot Project, a report about the first stage of the project
• The WITCHCRAFT Pilot: A Prototype Search Engine For Folk Songs: Poster Siren 12 October 2006
• WITCHCRAFT: Poster Siren 10 October 2005
• Symposium on Music Information Retrieval, 20 February 2007, presentations

Other links

• the CATCH programme (Continuous Access To Cultural Heritage)

Contact: frans.wiering (at) cs.uu.nl

Last updated 29-1-2008