The decitala package aims to make rhythmic search and analysis of encoded musical corpora easier. This toolkit can
be used to both detect rhythmic fragments in a work and suggest possible alignments. decitala is being developed
to make the analysis of Olivier Messiaen's music easier, particularly with respect to his use of ethnological
rhythmic fragments. If you find the tools/corpora to be useful or discover a bug, feel free to file an
Issue or drop me a note ([email protected]). I'd love to hear about how you used them and/or take suggestions.
The Sudhākaraḥ commentary on the opening of Śārngadeva's desītāla definitions (appearing in the Tālādhyāya of the Saṅgītaratnākara).
-"On the Sūtra beginning with 'laghu': having set forth the tālas definition, the author explains them sequentially. One laghu (|) is āditāla (1) two drutas, one laghu (o o |) is the dvitiya tāla (2) one druta, two druta viramas (o oc oc) is the tṛtīya tāla (3) two laghus, one druta (| | o) is the caturtha tāla (4) both drutas (o o) is pacchamaḥ (5) two plutas, two gurus, one laghu (Sc Sc S S |) is niḥśaṅkalīlaḥ (6) |" (Translation by Luke Poeppel)
Available at: https://luke-poeppel.github.io/decitala/.
This package requires music21 which is available here. It is recommended you download this library separately as its installation helper will set some useful preferences for you (like default notation software).
$ cd # Navigate to home directory
$ git clone https://github.com/Luke-Poeppel/decitala.git
$ cd decitala
$ pip3 install -e .
$ pre-commit install
$ decitala --version # Check for proper installation.
If you would like to use the vis.create_tree_diagram function, it requires several additional installation steps. These steps are available in the documentation. It is also recommended that you download the following application for viewing SQLite databases: sqlite-browser.
If you use decitala, please cite its DOI:
Śārngadeva (शार्ङ्गदेव) compiled a list of 130 rhythmic fragments called desītālas (देसी ताल) in his 13th-century musicological treatise, the Sangītaratnākara (सङ्गीतरत्नाकर). Messiaen used the gallicized "deçi-tâlas" in his writing which has been simplified here to "decitala."