Often it is useful to extract material according to the encoded content without regard to the position of the spine. LDeutsch' filename Segments or passages of music can be extracted using the yank command. Segments can be defined by sections, phrases, measures, or other any user-specified marker. For now, it is important only that you get a feel for some of the types of operations that Humdrum users might perform. Two or more commands can be connected into a pipeline.
Some tools translate from one representation to another.
For example, the mint command generates melodic interval information. Incidentally, Humdrum data can be processed by many common commands that are not part of the Humdrum Toolkit. The egrep command in the above pipeline is a common computer utility and is not part of the Humdrum Toolkit. Depending on the type of translation, the resulting data can be searched for different things. More complicated scripts can be written to carry out more sophisticated musical processes.