Chant Finder: A melodic index to Anglican chants

To be able to perform computational, quantitative as well as qualitative research on Anglican chants, access to a large body of chants is essential. In this article, we present a collection of Anglican chants, describe how these are represented, and we discuss the choices we made in the design of the collection. Additionally, a web-based interface is described that allows instant and easy access using various indexes. A key element of the collection is the way a chant can be found based on its melody. Each chant has a melodic fingerprint that can be used for identification purposes. We compare several existing fingerprint systems as well as their advantages and disadvantages. The collection currently contains over 20,000 chant references from over 70 chant books. This already allows for a wide range of initial research, but expanding the collection is an ongoing effort.