11. Editorial Markup

It is often necessary to render an account of any changes made to a musical text during its creation (and any subsequent editing) and to accommodate editorial comment necessitated by an editorial process. The elements and attributes described in this chapter may be used to record such editorial interventions, whether made by the composer, the copyists of the manuscript, the editor of a earlier edition used as a copy text, or the current encoder/editor.

The scope of the elements described herein is therefore the description of features relating to the genesis, later revision and editorial interpretation of a text. Mechanisms for describing multiple sources are described in chapter Critical Apparatus of these Guidelines.

The elements described in this chapter may be contained by a wide range of other MEI elements and, in turn, may contain a variety of elements. The encoder must assume responsibility for the appropriateness of the markup; that is, a great many combinations of editorial and transcriptional markup are technically possible, but care must be taken to see that the encoding does not contravene the rationale of these Guidelines.

For most of the elements discussed here, some encoders may wish to indicate both a responsibility; that is, a coded value indicating the person or agency responsible for making the editorial intervention in question, and an indication of the degree of certainty which the encoder wishes to associate with the intervention. Because these requirements are common to many of the elements discussed in this section, they are provided by an attribute class, att.edit, to which these elements subscribe. Any of the elements discussed here thus may potentially carry the following optional attributes:

Many of the elements discussed here can be used in two ways. Their primary purpose is to indicate that their content represents an editorial intervention (or, in some cases, the lack of intervention) of a specific kind. Sometimes, pairs or other meaningful groupings of such elements can be recorded, then wrapped within the special purpose choice element:

Wrapping elements this way enables the encoder to represent, for example, a text in its ‘original’, uncorrected form alongside the same text in one or more ‘edited’ forms. Making use of this style of representation, software may dynamically switch between the Urtext ‘view’ of the text and one or more ‘views’ of the text after the application of the encoded editorial interventions.

Elements which can be combined in this way constitute the model.choicePart class. The default members of this class are sic, corr, reg, orig, unclear, add, and del; their functions and usage are described in greater detail below.

Three categories of editorial intervention are discussed by the remainder of this chapter:

• indication or correction of apparent errors;
• indication of regularization of variant, irregular, non-standard, or eccentric forms; and
• editorial additions, suppressions, and omissions.

11.1. Abbreviations

MEI offers methods for marking abbreviations in prose, as in the following example:

<p>... the next passage shall be performed in<abbr>pno:</abbr>...
</p>

or abbreviations in the music itself, as in the following example:

<abbr>
   <bTrem measperf="16">
      <note dur="4" oct="5" pname="c" stem.mod="2slash"></note>
   </bTrem></abbr>

The type attribute may be used to classify the abbreviation according to a convenient typology. Sample values include:

suspension: the abbreviation provides the first letter(s) of the word or phrase, omitting the remainder;

contraction: the abbreviation omits some letter(s) in the middle;

brevigraph: the abbreviation comprises a special symbol or mark;

superscription: the abbreviation includes writing above the line;

acronym: the abbreviation comprises the initial letters of the words of a phrase;

title: the abbreviation is for a title of address (Dr, Ms, Mr, …);

organization: the abbreviation is for the name of an organization;

geographic: the abbreviation is for a geographic name.

This tag is the mirror image of the expan tag (not to be confused with the expansion element described in Content of Musical Divisions). Both abbr and expan allow the encoder to transcribe an abbreviation and its expansion. In the case of abbr, the original is transcribed as the content of the element and the expansion as an attribute value, while expan reverses this. The choice between the two is up to the user. For example:

<!-- using abbr --><p>... the next passage shall be performed in<abbr expan="piano">pno:</abbr>...
</p>
<!-- using expan -->
<p>... the next passage shall be performed in
   <expan abbr="pno:">piano</expan>...
</p>

The abbr tag is not required; if appropriate, the encoder may transcribe abbreviations in the source text silently, without tagging them. If abbreviations are not transcribed directly but expanded silently, then the MEI header should indicate this is the case. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the expansion of the abbreviation. The @expan attribute gives an expansion of the abbreviation. The @resp attribute contains an ID reference to an element containing the name of the editor or transcriber responsible for supplying the expansion of the abbreviation.

When the content of the @abbr or @expan attributes requires additional markup, an attribute cannot be used. In this case, the abbreviated and expanded forms must be presented within elements. Furthermore, as alternatives to each other, the abbr and expan elements must be wrapped by the choice element, as described above. The previous example, where the ‘o:’ in ‘pno:’ is written as superscript, would be encoded as:

<p>... the next passage shall be performed in
   <choice><abbr>pn
         <rend rend="sup">o:</rend></abbr><expan>piano</expan>
   </choice>
</p>

11.1.1. Instructions

Many musical scores make use of various kinds of shorthand notation which omit some parts of the score that have already been written elsewhere. Typical exampleS for this are symbols that indicate repetition of the preceding measure or beat. In MEI, these symbols can be encoded using the mRpt and beatRpt elements respectively. Often, similar graphical symbols (often one or two slashes, “//”) are used to mean that the current staff should have the same or similar content as another staff.

colla parte directives have a less strictly-defined scope than the ‘Rpt elements’ ( beatRpt, halfmRpt, mRpt, mRpt2, multiRpt). That is, rather than specifying the repetition of content of a particular duration, like a measure or beat, colla parte instructions can refer to material of any length. In order to encode such scribal shorthand, MEI offers the cpMark element, which allows filling of blank spaces in the score with horizontally and/or vertically distant material.

Like any other ‘controlEvent’, cpMark is placed in the score using the @staff and @tstamp attributes. The end point of the mark itself, when necessary, may be indicated using the @tstamp2 attribute. The source material, which is intended to be inserted in the space indicated by the copy mark, can be identified by the attributes @origin.tstamp, @origin.tstamp2, @origin.staff and @origin.layer. While @origin.tstamp provides the relative distance from the beginning of the “gap”, @origin.tstamp is relative to the position identified by @origin.tstamp. However, @origin.tstamp defaults to the same value as @tstamp2 and should only be provided when necessary. When neither @origin.staff nor @origin.tstamp are not provided, they take the same values as the cpMark’s @staff and @tstamp attributes; that is, they indicate a strict ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’ copy.

In the example above, there are no less than three different copy instructions, which need to be encoded with four cpMark elements. First, Weber inserts characters from “a” to “f” in red ink to identify filled measures. Then, he repeats the same characters in empty measures, which indicates that the content from the filled measures should be copied here. While one could try to encode this with just one cpMark element, it is both clearer and easier to process when using two elements.

The second and third shorthand indications are written in the second violin (lower staff). Here, Weber writes “unis.[ono]”, silently omitting the reference to the first violin. His next shorthand (“in 8va”) additionally instructs the copyist to double the written material in another octave. This information can be captured using the @dis and @dis.place attributes on cpMark.

<cpMark origin.tstamp="-6m+1" staff="8" tstamp="1" tstamp2="5m+4">a. b. c. d. e. f. g.</cpMark>
<cpMark origin.tstamp="-6m+1" staff="9" tstamp="1" tstamp2="5m+4">a. b. c. d. e. f. g.</cpMark>
<cpMark origin.staff="8" staff="9" tstamp="1.5" tstamp2="1m+3.5">unis:</cpMark>
<cpMark dis="8" dis.place="below" origin.staff="8" staff="9" tstamp="2" tstamp2="2m+3.5">in 8va</cpMark>

Text used as a copy mark, like the letters in the Weber example, may be encoded as content of the cpMark element. In the case of non-text marks, the @altsym, @extsym and @facs attributes may be used to refer to a graphical surrogate.

Depending on the purpose of the encoding, the omitted parts in the score may be filled with space and mSpace elements of appropriate duration or silently overwritten with the content that the cpMark identifies. Also, these two options may be combined through the use a choice element whose abbr and expan children explicitly encode a transcription of the original ‘gap’ (in abbr) and the result of the insertion of the indicated material (in expan).

11.2. Apparent Errors

When the source material to be encoded is manifestly faulty, an encoder or transcriber may elect simply to correct it without comment, although for scholarly purposes it will often be more generally useful to record both the correction and the original state of the text. The elements described here enable all three approaches, and allows the last to be done is such a way as make it easy for software to present either the original or the correction.

The following examples show alternative treatment of the same material. The text to be encoded contains a chord (c4, e4, g4, a4), where c4, e4, and a4 are quarter notes, but g4 is a half note.

An encoder may choose to silently correct the engraver’s error:

<chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>

or the correction may be made explicit:

<chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <corr>
      <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
   </corr>
   <note dur="2" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>

Alternatively, the encoder may simply record the typographic error without correcting it, either without comment or with a sic element to indicate the error is not a transcription error in the encoding:

<chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <sic>
      <note dur="2" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
   </sic>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>

If the encoder elects to record the original source text and provide a correction for the sake of transparency, both sic and corr may be used, wrapped in a choice element. The order of the sic and corr elements is not significant:

<chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <choice>
      <sic>
         <note dur="2" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </sic>
      <corr>
         <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </corr>
   </choice>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>

An indication of the person or agency responsible for the emendation can be provided as follows:

<!-- … --><chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <choice>
      <sic>
         <note dur="2" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </sic>
      <corr resp="#JK">
         <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </corr>
   </choice>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>
<!-- within the header for this document: -->
<respStmt>
   <name role="editor" xml:id="editTrans.JK">Johannes Kepper</name>
</respStmt>

Here the @resp attribute has been used to indicate responsibility for the correction. Its value (#editTrans.JK) is an example of the pointer values discussed in section Pointers and References. In this case, the @resp attribute points to a name element within the metadata header, but any element might be indicated in this way, if the correction has been taken from some other source. The @resp attribute is available for all elements which are members of the att.responsibility class. The att.edit class makes available a @cert attribute,which may be used to indicate the degree of editorial confidence in a particular correction, as in the following example:

<chord>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="e"></note>
   <choice>
      <sic>
         <note dur="2" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </sic>
      <corr cert="high">
         <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="g"></note>
      </corr>
   </choice>
   <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="a"></note>
</chord>

Where, as here, the correction takes the form of amending information present in the text being encoded, the encoder should use the corr element. Where the correction is present in the text being encoded, and consists of some combination of visible additions and deletions, the elements add or del should be used. For additional information on the use of add and del, see section Additions and Deletions below. Where the correction takes the form of an addition of material not present in the original because of physical damage or illegibility, the supplied element may be used. Where the ‘correction’ is simply a matter of expanding abbreviated notation, the expan element may be used.

11.3. Regularization and Normalization

When the musical source makes extensive use of unusual symbol shapes or non-standard notation features, it may be desirable for a number of reasons to regularize it; that is, provide ‘standard’ or ‘regularized’ forms that are equivalent to the non-standard forms.

As with other such changes to the source text, the changes may be made silently (in which case the MEI header should still specify the types of silent changes made) or may be explicitly marked using the following elements:

Consider this traditional soprano clef appearing somewhere in the course of a musical piece:

An encoder may choose to preserve this original clef, but flag it as nonstandard from the perspective of current practice by using the orig element with no attributes specified, as follows:

<orig>
   <clef line="2" shape="C"></clef>
</orig>

Alternatively, the encoder may indicate that the clef has been modernized into a G-clef by using the reg element with no attributes specified, as follows:

<reg>
   <clef line="2" shape="G"></clef>
</reg>

As another alternative, the encoder may encode both the old and modernized shapes, so that applications may render both at the reader’s will:

<choice>
   <orig>
      <clef line="2" shape="C"></clef>
   </orig>
   <reg>
      <clef line="2" shape="G"></clef>
   </reg>
</choice>

As described above, the @resp attribute may be used to specify the agent responsible for the regularization.

11.4. Additions, Deletions, and Omissions

The following elements are used to indicate when single notational symbols have been omitted from, added to, or marked for deletion from, a musical text. Like the other editorial elements described in this chapter, they allow for a wide range of editorial practices:

11.4.1. Omissions, Unclear Readings, Damage, and Supplied Readings

Encoders may choose to omit parts of the source for reasons ranging from illegibility, (making transcription difficult or impossible), to editorial policy, e.g., systematic exclusion of poetry or prose from an encoding. The full details of the policy decisions concerned should be documented in the MEI header (see section Encoding Description). Each place in the text at which omission has taken place should be marked with a gap element, optionally with further information about the reason for the omission, its extent, and the person or agency responsible for it, as in the following examples:

<gap extent="2" reason="illegible" unit="quarter_note"></gap>

<gap extent="several notes" reason="overwriting illegible"></gap>

Note that the extent of the gap may be marked precisely using attributes @unit and @quantity, or more descriptively using the @extent attribute.

Unlike TEI, MEI does not offer a desc element for further description of the reason for a gap. Instead, an annot may refer to the gap via its @startid, @endid, or @plist attributes and provide additional information.

The unclear element is used to mark passages in the original which cannot be read with confidence, or about which the transcriber is uncertain for other reasons, as for example when transcribing a illegible source. Its @reason and @resp attributes are used, as with the gap element, to indicate the cause of uncertainty and the person responsible for the conjectured reading.

<note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c">
   <unclear reason="ink blot">
      <artic artic="acc"></artic>
   </unclear>
</note>

Where the difficulty in transcription arises from an identifiable cause, the @agent attribute signifies the causative agent. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the transcription of the text contained within the unclear element. Where the difficulty in transcription arises from action (partial deletion, etc.) assignable to an identifiable hand, the @hand attribute may record the hand responsible for the action.

When the reason for a gap in the encoding is damage of the document carrier (the paper on which the document is written, for example), the damage element should be used instead of the gap element. In the case of damage resulting from an identifiable cause, the @agent attribute signifies the causative agent. The @degree attribute signifies the degree of damage according to a convenient scale. A damage tag with this attribute should only be used where the text may be read with some confidence; data supplied from other sources should be tagged as supplied. The @extent attribute indicates approximately how much text is in the damaged area, in notes, measures, inches, or any appropriate unit, where this cannot be deduced from the contents of the tag. For example, the damage may span structural divisions in the text so that the tag must then be empty of content. In the case of damage (deliberate defacement, etc.) assignable to an identifiable hand, the @hand attribute signifies the hand responsible for the damage.

Sometimes the editor provides information not present in the source material. These conjectures or emendations are marked up in MEI using the supplied element.

The following example demonstrates the use of the supplied element in combination with gap within subst:

<beam>
   <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="c"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="d"></note>
   <subst>
      <gap extent="two eighth notes" reason="missing notes"></gap>
      <supplied>
         <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="e"></note>
         <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="f"></note>
      </supplied>
   </subst>
   <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="g"></note>
   <note dur="4" oct="3" pname="a"></note>
</beam>

When the presumed loss of text arises from an identifiable cause, @agent signifies the causative agent. When the presumed loss of text arises from action (partial deletion, etc.) assignable to an identifiable hand, the @hand attribute signifies the hand responsible for the action. The @reason attribute indicates why the text has to be supplied, e.g. ‘overbinding’, ‘faded ink’, ‘lost folio’, ‘omitted in original’, etc. The @source attribute contains the source of the supplied text. The editor(s) responsible for supplied material may be recorded in the @resp attribute. The value of @resp must point to one or more identifiers declared in the document header. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the supplied material.

11.4.2. Additions and Deletions

The add and del elements may be used to record where material has been added or deleted in the source material.

The following example demonstrates the usage of add to mark up a note being added to an existing chord:

<chord>
   <note pname="c"></note>
   <note pname="e"></note>
   <note pname="g"></note>
   <add>
      <note accid="f" pname="b"></note>
   </add>
</chord>

The next example shows how del may be used to capture the information that two measures have been cancelled. As seen in this example, the @rend attribute is used to specify the method of deletion.

<section>
   <measure>
      <!-- … -->
   </measure>
   <measure>
      <!-- … -->
   </measure><del rend="strikethrough">
      <measure>
         <!-- … -->
      </measure>
      <measure>
         <!-- … -->
      </measure></del><measure>
      <!-- … -->
   </measure>
</section>

Additional information for both elements may be specified using attributes. Whereas the @hand attribute marks responsibility for the textual change, the @resp attribute is used to refer to the editor who identified this textual change as such. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the identification of the hand of the deletion or addition.

The add element should not be used to mark editorial changes, such as supplying a note omitted by mistake from the source text or a passage present in another source. In these cases, either the corr or supplied tags should be used instead.

11.4.3. Substitutions, Restorations, and Handshifts

When several interventions to the musical text are to be regarded as a single action, they may be grouped using the subst element. The most common combination is a replacement of portions of the musical text using both the add and del element, as seen in the following example:

<layer>
   <!-- preceding content -->
   <subst><del>
         <note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c"></note></del><add>
         <beam>
            <note dur="8" oct="4" pname="c"></note>
            <note dur="8" oct="4" pname="d"></note>
         </beam>
      </add>
   </subst>
   <!-- subsequent content -->
</layer>

An intervention closely related to substitution is the restoration of a previously deleted section. For this purpose MEI offers the restore element, which may contain a del or other content directly.

The following example illustrates an instance where a lyric which was cancelled and later restored by overwriting it:

<note dur="4" oct="4" pname="c">
   <syl>
      <restore desc="overwritten"><del>God</del></restore>
   </syl>
</note>

The @desc attribute gives a prose description of the means of restoration. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the identification of the hand of the restoration. The @type attribute may be used to indicate the action cancelled by the restoration. The @resp attribute contains an ID reference to an element containing the name of the editor or transcriber responsible for identifying the hand of the restoration. The @hand attribute signifies the hand of the agent which made the restoration.

MEI offers a handShift milestone element that can be used to mark a change of scribe or scribal style.

The @character attribute describes characteristics of the hand, particularly those related to the quality of the writing, e.g., ‘shaky’, ‘thick’, regular’. A description of the tint or type of ink, e.g., ‘brown’ or the writing medium, e.g., ‘pencil’, may be placed in the @medium attribute.

<layer>
   <note pname="f"></note>
   <note pname="a"></note>
   <handShift medium="blue ink"></handShift>
   <note pname="c"></note>
   <note pname="e"></note>
</layer>

The new hand may be identified using the @new attribute, while the previous hand may be recorded in the @old attribute. The @resp attribute contains an ID reference to an element containing the name of the editor or transcriber responsible for identifying the change of hand. The @cert attribute signifies the degree of certainty ascribed to the identification of the new hand.

When using this element within a layer, it is important to ensure that all layers and staves are considered. Every handShift affects only the content of its own layer and staff, even in the following measures. Therefore, there must be a separate handShift for every staff and layer. This mechanism allows the description of shifts at timestamps that differ between each staff.