EsAC

Essen Associative Code

The Essen Associative Code (EsAC) is probably the oldest, and certainly the longest-surviving, code for music in active use. Partly because of its longevity, this code forms the basis of hundreds of thousands of analogue (typescript) encodings in European archives. Only a small portion of this material is represented in the computer applications described below.

Origins and History to 1982

The term "EsAC" only properly applies to work developments from 1982 onward. The antecedents of the code can be traced back almost 200 years. No one country or region owns the idea of encoding folksongs, but the typewriter-friendly code that underlies EsAC was in widespread use in various Hapsburg domains in the nineteenth century. Ethnomusicological by Suppan (1966) and others are helpful in tracing the original mandate for folksong transcriptions to the late eighteenth-century Austrian emperor Joseph II, who launched an effort to map the scope of “Hapsburg culture” in all its manifestations.

As the Hapsburg domains expanded in the eighteenth century the diversity of cultural communities became steadily broader. Near the end of the reign of the emperor Joseph II (1765-1790), an initiative to document the practices of these many communities was initiated. Music was one of those practices.

Through much of mid-to-late nineteenth century the collection of folksongs was vigorously pursued, not only in Austro-Hungary but in many neighboring states. Much attention was given in the early twentieth century to publication and codification. Inevitably these efforts raised many new questions: (1) Did folksongs with the same title have the same music? (2) Was the same text set to more than one tune? The answers were "Not necessarily" and "Often." With infinite patience the transcription of melodies together with basic information about title, location from which the music came, meter, and so forth was typed. These descriptions of single songs came to fill countless file drawers.

The code that became EsAC is pervasive in typescript folksong collections across the whole of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia) and its neighbors. Poland may claim the largest share outside the former Empire; a photostatic copy of typescript cards was published in 1966 (Oskar Kolberg: Dzieła uszystkie). Today the entire collection of Kolberg’s writings and transcriptions is indexed (with some volumes also available for download) at the website of the Oskar Kolberg Institute in Poznań (Poland). http://www.oskarkolberg.pl/index.php/site/dziela.

Curiosity about and respect for folksongs did not confine itself to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Large collections of folksong transcriptions and arrangements were soon being made in various provinces of Germany. Because it prompted nostalgia for the past, the unification of Germany (1871) may have stimulated increased interest in local traditions. In its sweep across Europe up to the First World War, similar effects were evident all over. Some starting points for the exploration of today's online artifacts of European folk music are these:

DISMARC: Music (audio) portal within Europeana DISMARC

Europeana: Portal for European Culture Europeana

Germany: The Deutsche Volksliedarchiv (DVA) Das Deutsche Volksliedarchiv

Motivations for Folksong Analysis

The most potent question that folksong researchers began to ask as they organized this growing body of material was: How does the process of "morphing" (change by slow degrees) work? Can the pathways of changed be predicted? Can styles of adaptation be linked to certain regions? These open-ended questions proved difficult to answer. They continue to be asked today.

The Work of the Essen Hochschule für Musik

The adaptation of the code was carried out by Helmut Schaffrath Helmut Schaffrath, beginning in 1882. Teaching at the Hochschule für Musik in Essen, a central point in earlier times for the collection and publication of German folksongs, Schaffrath viewed the advent of the personal computer as an invitation to enable researchers to conduct their work systematically.

References to Printed Matter

Suppan, Wolfgang. Volkslied: Seine Sammlung und Erforschung. Stuttgart, 1966.
Suppan, Wolfgang (ed.). Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Melodien: Balladen, 2 vols. Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1967, 1976.