The “Universal Instrumentation Code”: Bringing Consistency to Orchestral Instrumentation Information

Abstract

The development of a system for the digital publication of music is rapidly moving from the realm of fantasy to immediate reality. But a number of significant hurdles impede the development of an efficient and effective system for delivering music digitally, not the least being the current inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies which abound in the referencing systems of published music around the globe. Using the knowledge gained from developing a system to represent the diverse catalogues of many music publishers in his Zinfonia publisher portal, Peter Grimshaw of BTM Innovation has developed a Universal Instrumentation Code which reconciles the various styles by which information about published music is categorised and represented. As outlined here, the Code enables significant new functionality to support the digital publication of music.