1. User Manual

Welcome to SIMSSA DB! This page will explain how to use SIMSSA DB from a user's perspective without delving in to the backend.

Search

You may search or browse for the item that you want via content or metadata. Enter a word in the search bar to query all items for matches in the item's name or composer.

Filters:

You may filter your search results by the options on the left hand side when applicable. Genre (Type of work) refers to the type of musical work, like Song, Mass, and Motet, while Genre (Style) can refer to styles such as Renaissance.

Features:

A feature is quantitative information that measures a characteristic of a segment of music in a simple, consistent and precisely-defined way. As features are represented numerically, you can filter for ranges of features. For example, filter for items less than a minute long; with at least two independent voices; with at least 20 pitches; and so on. The measurements of features vary. Duration is measured in seconds. Amount of a feature is measured against the total amount in the piece; i.e., amount of staccato represents the number of notes with a duration less than 0.1 seconds, divided by the total number of notes in the piece. Prevalence is also a fraction; i.e., prevalence of the most common pitch refers to the fraction of notes that correspond to the most common pitch.

For more explanation on features, visit jSymbolic Manual, which explains the features that may be extracted by the software.

Download

Once you locate the file(s) you would like to download, you may add the file to your cart by clicking the downwards-pointing arrow to reveal the green '+' button directly from the search page as seen in the below image. You may also click the file to view more information and use the same green '+' button from that page.

Download the files that you have added to your cart by clicking the Download Cart tab, where you may review your downloads and select the Download Your Cart! button.

Input

You may add files or metadata about a musical item into the database using the Upload page. To upload a file, one must input the relevant information.

SIMSSA DB emphasizes the importance of tracking provenance and of validating information. Please ensure that you are not adding information into the database that already exists. For each section of metadata, there is a checkbox with which you can indicate if this is new metadata that does not exist in the database, or if it does exist in the database, and you are selecting a pre-existing piece of information. Please attempt to select one of the options presented before inputting your own information. For example, if you want to add an XML file to the piece Missa Inviolata by Pierre (de) La Rue, you can type the title of the musical work into the respective autofill input element to see if it exists, and select it if it does to avoid duplicates.

The first page of the upload form is for the metadata about the musical work. When you click the submit button at the bottom of the page, it will bring you to a second upload form for the metadata about the file you are uploading, as well as for the file itself to be inserted. If you only plan to add metadata about a work, you may leave the second form blank and simply press submit.

Query Formatting

If you are searching for something in the SIMSSA database, consider the following cases to adjust your query to make sure you are getting all the results available.

1. Apostrophes

• Consider À l'heure - Josquin des Prez. If this piece is saved as A lheure in the database, À and A are distinct, and so are heure/l'heure and lheure. This means that searching for 'À lheure' or 'A l'heure' or 'heure' will not work. Querying for lheure will work. Consider removing the apostrophes from your queries if they do not return the files you are searching for.
• Similar cases: Faulte d'argent - Josquin des Prez requires searching for dargent since that is how it appears in the database. Missa Qual e il piu grande'amore, however, is spelled this same way in the database, so grande'amore will work. The apostrophe acts as a word separator, and therefore searching grande amore will also work.

2. Spelling

• Spelling from the 14th and 15th centuries differs from spelling today - like Antoine Busnoys' Au gre de mes ieulx. Consider searching for the composer rather than the name of their work if you are unsure of the spelling found in the database.
• Another case is Johannes Martini's Il est tousjours, which cannot be found by searching for toujours nor tous.
• Est and es are not the same. Spelling from certain sources may not exactly match what is in the SIMSSA database. Consider alternate spelling, or consider removing words with multiple spellings from your query.

3. Spacing

• Ensure your queries are spaced correctly. Estil merchy cannot be found by querying Est il merchy.