Performances?

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hplantin's picture

There is volunteer who is creating an index of recordings of gospel hymns. So, for example, he might have an index of a CD that has hymns performed by Aretha Franklin. He would like to add this information to Hymnary.org.

The effect would be that when you arrive at a hymn page, there would be a new section of "Related Resources" which lists performances of the hymn. The Authors (People) list would also have performers such as Aretha Franklin in it, and the page for a person would have a new section, "Performances", for any hymn performances we have in the database.

Would this be useful?

Would it change the nature of the site to index performances as well as hymn texts and tunes? What do you think good idea?

Harry


Comments

I think it's a great idea. It may be one thing to have 250 performances of Amazing Grace, but it may be very helpful to have that information for a rare tune.

Another commenter in a different place thought that this would be too much of a distraction, which would dilute the purpose of the site, which she saw as providing an index to hymnals, with information about authors/composers where possible. Besides, there are lots of places where people can research sound recordings, and decisions about what recordings to index at hymnary.org might be too subjective and distracting.

Responses?
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Harry Plantinga
CCEL Director

For now, at least, we're not going to add performances. There is plenty of work to be done on the main focus of the site before we start branching out.

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Harry Plantinga
CCEL Director

I agree, plenty indeed. So much that I was wondering if there might me a priority list somewhere that I could reference. If not, some possible entries might be:

  1. Enter or complete hymnal information for old or new hymnals.
  2. Correct already existing errors such as posts from A Dictionary of Hymnology and other info sources.
  3. Adding the approximately 5% of the hymns missing from DNAH files.
  4. Work on particular hymns or hymnals that are in most demand.
  5. Maybe do partial work on hymnals so that texts and tunes can be found in searches, and if more info is needed, the searcher would be directed to the hymnal it was found in.

I like variety in my work, so I would like to jump from task to task but if there was a priority list I could work from I could concentrate more on the most needed tasks.

KenJ

Ken,

We don't have much of a priority list at the moment -- I think we need to put more work into organizing the work needed. Unfortunately, most of the forward progress is made during the summer when students are able to work on the project full time. During the school year we mainly accomplish bug fixes and smaller enhancements.

However, I can say something about the work that needs to be done here. Some tasks:
1. Acquire page scans for each DNAH hymnal and install
2. "Light" processing for each DNAH hymnal: check bibliographic data about the hymnal such as name, editor, publication date, etc. Also check that all the hymns in the hymnal are shown, and give the hymns the correct number as used in the hymnal.
3. "Standard" processing for each DNAH hymnal: in addition to #2, correct first lines; correct author names; enter tune information
4. Optional processing for each DNAH hymnal: add full texts, scores, midi files, tune key signatures, etc.
5. Authority resolution for authors, texts, and tunes

Task 5 needs to be done, and it will be a lot of work, but it does require some level of understanding of how things work at hymnary.org. Having done the training hymnal & quiz may be sufficient, but the powerpoint presentation on authority resolution is also recommended.

Tasks 2-4 require having access to the printed hymnal, and we only have page scans for a couple of hymnals. So task 2 may be a good option if you have a printed hymnal.

Task 1 will have to go first for people who dont' have access to a printed hymnal. Fortunately, it can be done fairly easily and there are hundreds of scanned hymnals at archive.org. So, it would go something like this:

- make sure you have editor permissions at hymnary.org. (To get editor permission see this page.)

- go to archive.org and find a candidate scanned hymnal.

- check hymnary.org to make sure we don't already have page scans for that hymnal

- download the PDF file for the hymnal and extract the page images.* Make sure that they are named so that listing the files shows them in the proper order.

- determine how many page images there are before page 1 (i.e. the page containing the first hymn)

- bundle the page images up in a .zip file

- navigate to that hymnal's home page on hymnary.org and click the "upload page images" link to upload the images

- connect page images to hymns by clicking "attach images to this hymnal"

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* I use a commercial program called Abbyy FineReader Pro to extract page images. Adobe Acrobat can also supposedly do it, but that costs $$$ as well. I found a list of programs that can supposedly extract info from a PDF file.

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Harry Plantinga
CCEL Director

At archive.org, perhaps you could save the trouble of downloading the PDF, extracting the images, and then combining them into a zip file. If you look at the left-most column on the book homepage entitled "View the book", you will find a short list of files. Below the list, in the same box, you will find a link "All Files: HTTP" that can be clicked to go to another page with ALL files pertaining to the book. There should already be at least one zip file of images, usually in .jpg or j2 format. Wouldn't it perhaps be best to just upload one of those files instead of fussing with PDF and extraction? If you have a preference, you might prioritize the various formats in a preferred order according to what is available for each book, such as upload

  1. .jpg if available, if not, then
  2. .j2, if not available, then
  3. .tar.

Each book has a flippy.zip file which I suspect may not have good enough resolution for you to run ABBYY FineReader Pro on so you can make a better text file than the raw OCR available in the above mentioned list.

Re: page counting. Please note that the first hymn of a hymnal is NOT always on page 1. You might consider changing the instructions regarding this.

KenJ

PS. About a week ago I had actually begun downloading images of hymnals on the DNAH list. Now I know what I can do with them (upload) so others here can make use of them as well. Thank you, Harry. :) KJ

I don't think it would be a good idea to add performances, only because it could come across in a way of showing off. Basic MIDI files should be fine. The idea is mainly to give an idea of how the hymn sounds with the music.

Proclaim our salvation daily!
Psalm 96:2