A faithful transcription from the music printed in the Book of Lore to modern sheetmusic, audio files, and karaoke.

• stones.abc The source file for generating the sheetmusic and playable sound files.
• stones.pdf The sheet music, Gregorian C Clef, same as Book of Lore. (Or try Treble Clef).
• stones-karaoke.mid A MIDI file, including lyrics, that can be used for karaoke.
• stones-karaoke.wav Uncompressed audio file generated from MIDI.
• stones-karaoke.ogg Compressed audio file generated from MIDI.

make

Source ABC files in src create PDF, MIDI, WAV, and OGG in objects.

The video game Ultima V comes with a printed Book of Lore that includes a section on the music of its fictional land, Britannia, and includes an example song, Stones. The style appears to be Medieval "square notation" with a four line staff (𝄙), a Gregorian C Clef (𝇐), and odd note shapes, such as PORRECTUS (𝇙).

Just for fun, I transcribed the music to ABC notation. From that I created sheet music for the song in both the treble clef (𝄞), which most people are familiar with, and the Gregorian C clef (𝇐) used in the Book of Lore. The sheetmusic includes the lyrics for all four verses, although I did have to adjust them slightly where there were simply too many syllables. (This might be a sign that I got the transcription of the music wrong.)

• Sheetmusic in Gregorian C clef
• Sheetmusic in modern Treble clef

Below is a discussion of how I transcribed the music.

Here is a direct transcription from the original score with no assumption about note duration.

𝇐 +C Clef+
𝇕AB 𝆸̅c 𝇕dc 𝆸̅B 𝇕cB 𝆸̅A 𝇙BAG 𝆺E
𝄒 +breath mark+
𝇕AB 𝆸̅c 𝇕Bc 𝆸̅d 𝇕cd 𝆺e•
𝇁 +Longa perfecta rest+
(*custos* at end of staff to foreshadow 'A' on next line.)

𝇐 +C Clef+
𝇕AB 𝆸̅c 𝇕dc 𝆸̅B 𝇕cB 𝆸̅A 𝇙BAG 𝆺E
𝄒 +breath mark+
𝇕AB 𝆸̅c 𝇕dc 𝆸̅b 𝇕AG𝇙BAB  𝆺|A|•

Key:

• Capital letters are one octave lower.
• • means there is a dot after the note (1 beat longer)
• || means there are vertical bars around the note
• 𝇕 Clivis (two notes)
• 𝆸 Brevis (one note)
• 𝆸̅ an Episema over a Brevis. (Episema means hold a little longer)
• 𝇙 Porrectus (three notes)
• 𝆺 Semi-brevis (one note)

Whie the score appears to be Medieval Square Notation, I think this score is more similar to our modern music notation for these reasons:

• The Medieval clivis (𝇕) represented a single syllable sung as two notes, but if that was the case here, the lyrics would have way too many syllables. Treating clivis as beamed eighth notes (♫), on the other hand, matches perfectly.

• The durations of the notes doesn't sound right. The diamond that looks like a whole note to us (𝅝) is actually a semibrevis (𝆺), the Medieval eighth note. It doesn't make sense that this tune's final note would be a dotted eighth!

• If this was Square Notation, why are there no longas (𝆷)? And why would every brevis (𝆸) have an episema line over it (𝆸̅)?

• Stacked notes that would be hard for a modern person to read, such as PODATUS (𝇔), are absent.

My guess at the actual note durations that seems to work and fits (mostly) within 4/4 measures:

Clivis 𝇕 → ♫ Beamed eighth notes

Brevis with episema 𝆸̅ → 𝅘𝅥 Quarter note

Porrectus 𝇙 → Beamed triplet (three eighth notes played in the time of two)

Semi-brevis 𝆺 → 𝅗𝅥 Half note

Dotted Semi-brevis 𝆺• → 𝅗𝅥𝅭 Dotted half note

Using those presumptions, I created the stones.abc file which contains the music and lyrics. Additionally, the stones.abc file changes the staff when printed to pdf so that note placement is exactly as set in the score from the Book of Lore.

ABC format looks like this, by the way:

AB c2 dc B2 | cB A2 (3BAG E2 |
AB c2 Bc d2 | cd e6 |
AB c2 dc B2 | cB A2 (3BAG E2 |
AB c2 dc B2 | AG (3BAB A4 |

If I understand correctly, longa (𝆷), a square with a stem attach and looks like our quarter note (𝅘𝅥), should be equal to a either half note or a dotted half note depending on the context. (It has something to do with dividing by threes that I definitely do not understand).

But, let's pretend a longa is always exactly a half note.

A brevis (𝆸), half as long as a longa, would be a quarter note (𝅘𝅥)

A semibrevis (𝆺), half as long as a brevis (𝆸), would be an eighth note (𝅘𝅥𝅮).

Although they don't appear in this piece, a maxima (𝆶) is twice as long as a longa (𝆷) and would be a whole note (𝅝), while a minima (𝆺𝅥) is half as long as a a semibrevis (𝆺) and thus a sixteenth note (𝅘𝅥𝅯).

Any note with a episema line over it is held a little longer.

A dot after a note means it is held one full beat longer.

𝇕 Clivis (two quarter notes)

𝆸 Brevis (quarter note)

𝇙 Porrectus (three slurred quarter notes)

𝆺 Semi-brevis (eighth note)

[To do in the future: create .abc file using those lengths]

• Page from 'The Book of Lore: Music'
• Many, many other interpretations of Stones
• Handy Unicode characters for Medieval square notation
• Handy Unicode characters for music in general