Tunes may be identified by matching the Incipit—the first few consecutive notes—expressed in numerical code. Incipits are coded using 1¹⁾ for “do”, 2 for “re”, 3 for “mi”, etc. Ignore rhythm, accidentals, grace notes, and octaves. Thus, the Incipit for #1 - The Sweet Bye And Bye is 123212165123335532 .

Initially, Incipits on this site are being entered manually for Hymns / Sacred cobs, but this will take significant time. Please Contact Us if you are interested in this project.

The advantage of including the Incipit in the information for Cobs is that it's easy to fing via Search²⁾:

• Enter the known portion of a melody, followed by an * (asterisk), like this: 123212165* (←try it)
• If you don't know the first notes of a melody, also use a wildcard * (asterisk) at the beginning, like: *3212165* (←try it)
• It is often difficult to distinguish between repeated and tied notes, so if a search doesn't return the expected result, try omitting or adding insignificant repeated notes. Or try a search for the beginning notes and those following, like: 123* *212165* (←try it)
• Don't forget to always add an * to the end of the search criteria!