.. _about:


Authors, Acknowledgments, Contributing, and Licensing
=====================================================

Music21 is an open-source toolkit for Computer-aided musicology.  It is licensed under 
the LGPL or BSD license (see below).

About the Authors
-----------------------

**Michael Cuthbert**, the creator of `music21`, is Associate Professor of Music at M.I.T.  
He received his A.B. *summa cum laude*, A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University.   
Cuthbert spent 2004-05 at the American Academy as a Rome Prize winner in Medieval Studies,
2009-10 as Fellow at Harvard's Villa I Tatti Center for Italian Renaissance Studies 
in Florence, and 2012-13 at the Radcliffe Institute.  

Prior to joining the M.I.T. faculty, Cuthbert was on the faculties of Smith 
and Mount Holyoke Colleges.  He has worked extensively on computer-aided musical analysis,
fourteenth-century music, and the music of the past forty years.  He has published
on computer-aided treatment of fragments and palimpsests of the late Middle Ages and 
on set analysis of Sub-Saharan African Rhythm and the music of John Zorn. In addition to
work on music21, Cuthbert is currently writing a book on sacred music in Italy during the 
age of the Black Death and Great Papal Schism.

**Christopher Ariza** is Emeritus Lead Programmer of `music21` and was 
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music
at M.I.T. from 2010 to 2013.  Prior to joining the `music21` project, 
Ariza was Assistant Professor of Music
Technology at Towson University in Baltimore.  He has published and 
presented numerous articles 
and papers on algorithmic composition and generative music systems.  
Ariza received his A.B.
degree from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University.

**Benjamin Hogue** is Former Lead Programmer of `music21`.

**Josiah Wolf Oberholtzer** is Former Lead Programmer of `music21`.

Additional contributions by many MIT students and visitors and the 
Open Source software community.


Acknowledgements  
----------------

Funding
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The music21 project was made possible by generous research funding 
from the **Seaver Institute** and
the **National Endowment for the Humanities**/Digging into Data research fund.

In addition, we acknowledge consistent support from `M.I.T.`_, the 
`School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences`_, and the 
`Music and Theater Arts`_ section.

.. _M.I.T.: http://web.mit.edu/
.. _School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences: http://shass.mit.edu/
.. _Music and Theater Arts: http://web.mit.edu/mta/

Colleagues and Institutions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music21 is unthinkable without our colleagues and friends
working on other music and technology projects, in particular:

* `David Huron`_, inventor of `Humdrum`_, the inspiration for music21.

* The `Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities`_ at Stanford University,
  contributing to the knowledge of music since 1984, and 
  publishers of *Computing in Musicology*.

.. _David Huron: http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Huron/
.. _Humdrum: http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/Humdrum/
.. _Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities: http://www.ccarh.org/

Contributors
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Additionally, the following individuals have contributed materials or knowledge
to this project.  Their contributions and generosity are greatly appreciated.

* Thomas Bonte, Nicholas Froment, and Werner Schweer of `MuseScore`_ for their 
   support and for their contributions to the open source music notation projects, 
   including the Bach Goldberg Variations and the Handel Arias included.

* `Donald Byrd`_, researcher on University of Indiana who created 
   a schema for computer-aided musicology (along with the source of all sorts of 
   examples of how music notation is difficult).

* `Jack Campin`_ has kindly given permission to distribute his ABC editions of the Aird 
  Collection, the Northumbrian Minstrelsy, and the Colonial and Civil War American 
  Fife Music Collection. 

* `John Chambers`_ has provided ABC editions to distribute with music21, including the 
  Aird Collection, the O'Neill's Music of Ireland Collection, and Ryan's Mammoth Collection 
  of fiddle tunes.

* `Laura E. Conrad`_ has kindly given permission to distribute her ABC editions of 
  renaissance polyphony from Serpent Publications.

* `Ewa Dahlig-Turek`_ has kindly given permission to distribute the 
   Essen folksong database with music21.

* `Michael Good`_ and Recordare.com for creating MusicXML and many 
   discussions about the project.

* `Margaret Greentree`_ kindly gave permission for distribution of her edited 
   collection of the Bach chorales in MusicXML format as part of the music21 corpus.  
   Her website contains all these chorales in additional formats.  
   Any discoveries we make regarding these chorales are done in her memory.

* Walter B. Hewlett and Craig Sapp of Stanford's CCARH for support.

* `Justin London`_ compiled and maintained the list of Second-Viennese 
   row forms now available in serial.py.

* `McGill University`_ ELVIS project for including the MEI parser. Special thanks to Julie 
   Cumming, Andrew Hankinson, and especially Christopher Antila for contributing.

* `Manuel Op de Coul`_ has kindly gave permission to use the Scala 
   scale archive of nearly 4000 scales in music21.

* `Seymour Shlien`_ has kindly given permission to distribute his ABC 
   encodings of the Essen folksong database with music21.

* `Bryen Travis`_ has kindly gave permission to use his collection of 
   Bach MIDI data in music21.

* `Project Gutenberg`_ houses public domain music, including the quartets of Beethoven, 
  Haydn, and Mozart, in musicxml format which we have been able to include in music21.

.. _Donald Byrd: http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm
.. _Laura E. Conrad: http://www.serpentpublications.org/
.. _Michael Good: http://www.recordare.com
.. _Margaret Greentree: http://www.jsbchorales.net
.. _MuseScore: http://www.musescore.com
.. _Justin London: http://www.people.carleton.edu/~jlondon/2ndviennese.htm
.. _Bryen Travis: http://www.bachcentral.com/
.. _Ewa Dahlig-Turek: http://www.esac-data.org
.. _Seymour Shlien: http://ifdo.pugmarks.com/~seymour/runabc/esac/esacdatabase.html
.. _Manuel Op de Coul: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala
.. _John Chambers: http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/book
.. _Jack Campin: http://www.campin.me.uk/
.. _McGill University: http://digihum.mcgill.ca/blog/2012/11/30/elvis-digging-into-data-at-mcgill/
.. _Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/categories/4




How to Contribute
-----------------

We are always interested in working with interested musicologists, 
programmers, psychologists, composers, game-designers,
performers, amateur music enthusiasts, etc.  In particular, we're interested 
in hearing about how music21 helped you
advance your work ... or in problems with music21 itself or contributions you've made.  

You can contact the larger music21 community through the `music21 list`_.

.. _music21 list: http://groups.google.com/group/music21list

In particular, if you are interested in contributing documentation, tests, 
or new features to music21, please contact the lead author on GitHub or through the
list. 





Licensing and Copyright
---------------------------------


The music21 Toolkit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music21 is Copyright (c) 2006-15, Michael Scott Cuthbert and cuthbertLab.  
Music21 code (excluding content encoded in the corpus) is 
free and open-source software, licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL) or the
BSD License.

The music21 Corpus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The LGPL/BSD music21 software is distributed with a corpus of encoded 
compositions which are distributed 
with the permission of the encoders (and, where needed, the composers 
or arrangers) and where permitted 
under United States copyright law. Some encodings included in the corpus 
may not be used for commercial uses 
or have other restrictions: please see the licenses embedded in individual 
compositions or directories for more details.   

To the best of our knowledge, the music (if not the encodings) 
in the corpus are either out of copyright 
in the United States and/or are licensed for non-commercial use. 
These works, along with any works linked 
to in the virtual corpus, may or may not be free in your jurisdiction. 
If you believe this message to be in 
error regarding one or more works please contact Michael Cuthbert at 
the address provided on the contact page.
