National Library News May 2000 Vol. 32, no. 5

SAVOIR FAIRE: Taming the Dragon: Using a Voice Recognition Program

Diane Thomson,
Research and Information Services

George Rochberg and Istvan Anhalt.

Dr. Alan Gillmor of Carleton University's Music Department abandoned the traditional methods when he was faced with the task of transcribing hundreds of pages of letters handwritten by two noteworthy North American composers, Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg. In a fascinating and lively SAVOIR FAIRE presentation entitled "Taming the Dragon: Using a Voice Recognition Program", Dr. Gillmor explained how new technologies are assisting him in his latest research project.

While a student at McGill University, Dr. Gillmor was privileged to work with Professor Istvan Anhalt (born 1919). Many years later, while acting as an external appraiser for the Anhalt fonds  -  which is held by the Music Division of the National Library  -  Dr. Alan Gillmor became interested in the correspondence between Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg, a post-modernist composer at the University of Pennsylvania. The letters, written over the course of the past 40 years, contain a thorough discussion of the compositions and other musical and intellectual interests of the two 20th-century composers. Dr. Gillmor felt that these letters should be published in order to make them available to other music scholars, so he obtained the permission of both men to embark on this project.

The first step was to transcribe the letters into electronic format, thereby providing Dr. Gillmor with editable text. To eliminate the necessity of sitting at a workstation and keying in the contents of the letters manually, the National Library made available a new software package, The Dragon Naturally Speaking. The Dragon Naturally Speaking is a voice recognition program that Dr. Gillmor trained to recognize the idiosyncrasies of his speech. He was then able to read the letters aloud, in a normal speaking voice, while the program translated the spoken word into text. An article by Dr. Gillmor in the National Library News (vol. 31, no. 10, October 1999, p. 9-10) presented both the project and the humorous side of working with this new technology.

Having completed the initial "inputting" of the contents of the Anhalt/Rochberg letters, Dr. Gillmor has now begun to edit this interesting collection of the thoughts of the two renowned composers. Scholars around the world will soon have access to their letters, thanks to the work of Dr. Gillmor and his Dragon.

The archival fonds of Istvan Anhalt and those of other Canadian composers, from Glenn Gould to Randy Bachman, can be consulted in the Manuscript Section of the Music Division of the National Library of Canada. For further information, contact the Music Division by e-mail at mus@lac-bac.gc.ca; or visit their Web site at <www.collectionscanada.ca/6/28/index-e.html>.

SAVOIR FAIRE is a monthly seminar series given by researchers and staff members of the National Library of Canada. The series focusses on scholarly activity at the National Library and fosters information exchange among researchers and staff.