1. Title of Database: Bach Chorales (time-series).

2. Sources:
(a) Chorales: Mainous and Ottman edition.
Mainous, Frank D. and Robert W. Ottman, eds. 1966.
The 371 Bach Chorales. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
(b) Original owners of database:
Darrell Conklin
ZymoGenetics Inc.
1201 Eastlake Avenue East
Seattle WA, 98102
conklin@zgi.com
(c) Donor of database:
Same as owner. Ann Blombach of Ohio State University originally
supplied me with 4-voice encodings of 100 chorales. The present
database is the soprano line, converted into Lisp-readable form,
and extensively corrected.
3. Past Usage:
Conklin, Darrell and Witten, Ian. 1995. Multiple Viewpoint Systems
for Music Prediction. Journal of New Music Research. 24(1):51-73.
(Successfully coded chorales in a test set with an average of ~1.8 bits
per pitch. Used a learning technique called Multiple Viewpoints.)

Abstract:
This paper examines the prediction and generation of music using a
multiple viewpoint system, a collection of independent views of the
musical surface each of which models a specific type of musical
phenomena. Both the general style and a particular piece are modeled
using dual short-term and long-term theories, and the model is created
using machine learning techniques on a corpus of musical examples.
The models are used for analysis and prediction, and we conjecture
that highly predictive theories will also generate original,
acceptable, works. Although the quality of the works generated is
hard to quantify objectively, the predictive power of models can be
measured by the notion of entropy, or unpredictability. Highly
predictive theories will produce low-entropy estimates of a musical
language.
The methods developed are applied to the Bach chorale melodies.
Multiple-viewpoint systems are learned from a sample of 95 chorales,
estimates of entropy are produced, and a predictive theory is used to
generate new, unseen pieces."
4. Dataset synopsis
Sequential (time-series) domain. Single-line melodies of 100 Bach
chorales (originally 4 voices). The melody line can be studied
independently of other voices. The grand challenge is to learn a
generative grammar for stylistically valid chorales (see references
and discussion in "Multiple Viewpoint Systems for Music Prediction").
5. Number of Instances: 100 Chorales, each with ~45 events
6. Number of Attributes: 6 (nominal) per event
(a) start-time, measured in 16th notes from
chorale beginning (time 0)
(b) pitch, MIDI number (60 = C4, 61 = C#4, 72 = C5, etc.)
(c) duration, measured in 16th notes
(d) key signature, number of sharps or flats,
positive if key signature has sharps,
negative if key signature has flats
(e) time signature, in 16th notes per bar
(f) fermata, true or false depending on whether
event is under a fermata
7. Attribute domains (all integers):
(a) {0,1,2,...}
(b) {60,...,75}
(c) {1,...,16}
(d) {-4,...,+4}
(e) {12,16}
(f) {0,1}
8. Missing Attribute Values: none, repeated sections (|: :|) are
not re-encoded, i.e., |:A:|B is encoded as AB.
9. Class Distribution: one class
10. The grammar describing the chorale dataset:
Dataset -> Chorale*
Chorale -> (Chorale_Number (Events))
Events -> Event Events
Events -> Event
Event -> (Attributes)
Attributes -> (st S) (pitch N) (dur D)
(keysig K) (timesig T) (fermata F)
(see 7. above for attribute domains)