The Methodology of Automated Decryption of Znamenny Chants

The paper considers problems of applying information technology to the processing of ancient music manuscripts. We propose to use automated component methodology, which applies machine translation methods and allows decoding Znamenny Chants into a linear notation. The present work describes basic stages of the methodology. In order to implement the methodology steps, the work develops and describes an automated system of research studies "Computer Semiography". The system consists of a module of the chants' input into the database, review of the manuscripts in electronic form, formation of a linguistic model of ancient musical chants, translation models, and decoding of the chants. Music editor module allows users to play the resulting melodies, while input of chants and translation rules makes it possible for users to conduct researches without a reference to a particular manuscript. As a result, these web services have been developed to assist researchers, historians and musicians to process a wide variety of musical manuscripts written in Znamenny notation.