Digital Splitleaf Psalter

Welcome to the Digital Splitleaf! A Modern Metrical Psalter

This is a new kind of metrical psalter, inspired by the traditional split-leaf format where tunes and texts could be freely matched. Now, with the help of digital technology, you can do just that—quickly and easily.

Select your psalm text and tune, and the Digital Splitleaf will automatically underlay the text beneath the music, making it simple to read and sing. Whether you are leading worship, singing in a group, or practicing on your own, the interface is designed to support your singing experience.

We are building a community of psalm singers who are passionate about this rich musical practice, committed to singing the psalms today and promoting them for future generations. We invite you to explore, sing, and share.

About

The Digital Splitleaf was made possible by recent advances in web-based music technology, allowing dynamic musical content to be displayed directly in your browser. Unlike many image-based music apps, this platform is lightweight and accessible—no high-speed internet or large downloads required. It also offers unmatched flexibility in pairing psalm texts with tunes, something static formats cannot support.

Built using open-source software maintained by active scholarly and developer communities, the Digital Splitleaf adheres to current standards of preservation for both text and music. It is designed not only for ease of use, but also for long-term sustainability and accessibility.

Technical Infrastructure

All Psalm texts are stored in Extensible Markup Language (XML) following the standards established by the Text Encoding Initiative. This is a method of annotating texts that allows for signficiant flexibility in the ways the text is presented. As XML, the psalm versifications are not tied to any proprietary software and therefore can be easily preserved and adapted for a variety of uses.

The tunes have similarly been stored in XML, this time using the standards established by the Music Encoding Initiative. As with TEI-based text documents, MEI offers significant flexibility in the ways notated music is captured in a text-based format, including the ability to comment on various musical aspects and the ability to include variants from different sources. Using the Verovio application, MEI files can be viewed in websites such as this, and the files can be exported to other formats that allow for editing and analysis.

The XML text and music files are managed by an eXist database that automatically populates the database with the structured information in each XML file. This allows for great flexibility in working with XML files.

Edition Creator

The Digital Splitleaf Psalter was created by and is maintained by Timothy Duguid. Duguid has published on Reformation metrical psalmody in England and Scotland with Ashgate/Routledge and was a researcher for the Wode Psalter project, an exhibition focused on the impact of metrical psalms on British society following the Reformation. He is now working on digital research methodologies in musicology.

Text Encoding Initiative Music Encoding Initiative
Verovio music viewer Powered by eXist-db

Editions

This resource provides editions of various psalters throughout history. Every effort has been made to modernize the texts for today's singers. However, there may be instances in which archaic words have remained due to the rhyme or the metre. The Dictionary of the Scots Language is a helpful resource for defining archaic Scottish words.

1564 Forme of prayers and ministration of the sacraments

This edition was the first complete metrical psalter printed in Scotland. It was based on the psalters produced by the exile church of English and Scottish nationals in the city of Geneva during the late 1550s. In Scotland, it became the edition of the Reformed Kirk for almost 90 years. It was therefore the psalter of many influential reformers including John Knox and Andrew Melville.

It is important to note that the 1564 Psalter was not a split-leaf psalter. Like many editions of today, it printed or suggested one tune for each psalm text. Those relationships have been preserved in this edition, as the printed tune or suggestion will initially appear in the tune box of the app. It is also worthy to note that the psalter only provided the melody and no harmonies. Unlike in Calvin's Geneva, this was not due to any theological objections to the use of harmonized settings in worship. Most of the melodies were printed for the tenor voice, and they have been reproduced here for that voice, but many have been augmented with the harmonizations that appeared in the Wode Partbooks, or St Andrews Psalter. The psalm settings in the Wode Partbooks set the melodies from the Psalter in four parts, and they were completed in 1566. Thomas Wode was the compiler of the collection, which was dedicated to Lord James Stewart, half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots and was intended for devotional use. However, it is known that many of the settings also became popular in churches across Scotland.

1635 The Psalmes of David in Prose and Meeter (The Great Psalter)

This was the first metrical psalter printed in Scotland to include all of the psalm tunes in four parts. It was an effort by its editor, Edward Millar, to consolidate singing practice throughout the country. Milar claims that in churches across the country "...sundrie Tribles, Basses and Counters set by diverse Authors, being sung upon one, and the same Tenor, do discordingly rub each upon another, offending both Musicall and rude ears..." The edition's lasting mark on Scottish psalm singing, however, lies chiefly in the 30 harmonizeed Common Tune settings that it contained.

This digital edition has taken the 30 Common Tunes from the 1635 edition. They are also printed by the Rev Neil Livingston in his excellent edition of the 1635 Psalter. In addition to the harmonized psalm settings, Livingston's edition also includes the so-called "Psalms in Reports", which were polyphonic settings of the psalms. While those are too complicated to be set in this digital edition, they may be of interest to some.

1650 The Psalter in Metre

Commonly known as the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter, this edition was the culmination of years of labor amongst the Westminster Divines and the Scottish General Assembly. The texts are still frequently sung today, which speaks to the quality of the translation and versification work that was accomplished in this edition. It was originally printed without music, so people would have paired the tunes they knew with its texts. Since the majority of its texts were written in Common Metre, the Common Tunes were generally the most commonly used melodies.

Support & contact

The Digital Splitleaf has just completed its initial development period. There are plans to continue to add more tunes and texts along with a variety of other features. To support the work, see the Digital Splitleaf on Ko-Fi.

If you have ideas about tunes to be added or other features to be added, please email me at digital-splitleaf[at]protonmail[dot]com. Or, follow us on Twitter.