MODAVISA RESEARCH PROJECT
THE WHOLE PROJECT, AT A GLANCE

Find your thread.

ESC
10 notebooks
01 / Research

Virtual Acoustic Objects

An instrument is more than its shape. Bring its sound, structure and evidence together.

7 pages
02 / Research

Research & questions

How can digital representations keep musical heritage open to critical inquiry?

7 pages
03 / Research

Recording & fieldwork

From an instrument in a room to an attributable, reusable recording.

4 pages
04 / Resources

Navigator

An evidence-led workspace for exploring instruments, people, places and histories.

3 pages
05 / Resources

Pipe Organ Dataset

A versioned corpus of organological records, connected to their sources.

4 pages
06 / Resources

Tools & experiences

The tools, standards and research collections of MODAVIS, with their responsibilities and release status.

8 pages
07 / Foundations

Ontologies

A shared language for instruments, evidence, historical states and digital representations.

6 pages
08 / Foundations

Standards & citation

Stable identities, explicit versions and inspectable content.

5 pages
09 / Foundations

About the project

Musical instruments, digital scholarship and the possibilities of open research.

3 pages
10 / Foundations

Journal & milestones

A dated route through the project’s published standards, data and research.

2 pages
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NOTEBOOK 07

Ontologies

You’re reading the fixed September 2026 edition.Current notebook ↗
FOUNDATIONS / NOTEBOOK 07

Give relationships a precise meaning

A semantic model helps different collections describe what they know without flattening their differences.

2 min read · September 2026
A REFERENCE YOU CAN RETURN TO

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This reference points to the fixed 2026-09 notebook edition. Cite underlying research data and software separately.

MODAVIS (2026). Give relationships a precise meaning — Ontologies & vocabularies. Research notebooks, September 2026 edition. https://modavis.org/editions/2026-09/ontologies/introduction/

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On this page

The MODAVIS Ontology Network is a modular model for evidence-backed, time-aware knowledge about musical instruments and their representations. It is instrument-neutral, with a dedicated specialization for pipe organs.

Identity comes first

An instrument is distinct from a state of that instrument, a digital surrogate, a playable virtual instrument, a software product and a package. Explicit identities make it possible to connect these things without treating them as interchangeable.

AreaExamples
Objects and contextInstruments, components, configurations, agents, places and uncertain time.
Knowledge and historyEvidence, assertions, provenance and documented events.
Digital representationsMedia, bitstreams, audio, tuning and virtual instruments.
Domain and interpretationOrgan specialization, heritage contexts and reviewed vocabulary.
MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0The published semantic model.
Versioned ontology entry point

Sources & further reading

  1. MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0

    The published semantic model.

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