Windy Friday - New Tune

[Mikefule]

Don't worry, I'm not suddenly going to swamp C-net with my own compositions. However, this one is the first I have composed on the Anglo, rather than the harmonica, and I'm quite pleased with it so I thought I'd share it. It's written here in G because I tend to play GD when I'm with the Morris. Any ABC converter can transpose it. I play in the harmonic style and the tune offers several different harmony options using the common set of 5 chords: G, C, D, Em and Am.

 

X:8
T:Windy Friday
M:6/8
L:1/8
Z:Michael Wilkinson
K:G
z2D | G2B GAB | c2A ABc | B2G GFG | AAB cBA | B2G dcB | AAB cBA | BAG DEF | G3 :||: B2c | d2B Bcd | e2c cde | dgf edB | AAB cBA | B2G dcB | AAB cBA | BAG DEF | G3 :||

[Pete Dunk]

Good tune! I hope you don't mind but I've tidied the abc up a bit as such long lines can cause problems, I've also added a Q: field to set the speed - just edit the number after Q:3/8= if you want to change the speed. Right, I'm off to give it a go!

 

X:8

T:Windy Friday

M:6/8

L:1/8

Z:Michael Wilkinson

Q:3/8=110

K:G

z2D | G2B GAB | c2A ABc | B2G GFG | AAB cBA |B2G dcB |

AAB cBA |BAG DEF | G3 :: B2c | d2B Bcd | e2c cde |

dgf edB |AAB cBA |B2G dcB | AAB cBA | BAG DEF | G3 :|]

[Mikefule]

Thanks. I'd got it sounding right on ABC, but I'm not familiar with all the little niceties of using ABC optimally.

 

Does it make a practical difference where and when you put the new line? I can see it would be easier to read if you did it every 4 bars, for example. Or is there a technical programming reason?

 

Thanks

[Pete Dunk]

Legibility is what it's all about and the number of bars in a staff line largely depends on how 'busy' the music is, if there are lots of semiquavers a single bar of 4/4 can take up lots of page space whereas a 4/4 piece with mainly crotchets will be easily read at eight bars to the stave line. From an abc point of view it's said to be wiser to limit your coding to no more than seventy two characters per line to make it portable as an email text file, any longer and the file may have extra returns inserted which ruins the abc coding. The length of the text line doesn't alter the number of bars you put in a line though, if you add a backslash (\) at the end of a line of code it 'adds' the next line as a straight continuation. So this:

 

X:8
T:Windy Friday
M:6/8
L:1/8
Z:Michael Wilkinson
K:G
z2D | G2B GAB |\

c2A ABc |\

B2G GFG | \

AAB cBA |\

B2G dcB |\

AAB cBA |\

BAG DEF | \

G3 :||: B2c | d2B Bcd | e2c cde | dgf edB | AAB cBA |\

B2G dcB | AAB cBA | BAG DEF | G3 :||

 

Is exactly the same as your code in a practical sense. All of that won't fit in a single line of music of course so leaving it without any line breaks of your own making leaves it up to the software to decide what to print on each line and how many lines of music there will be. Let me know when you're ready for the next bit.

[Mikefule]

Thanks. I appreciate both the advice and the clarity of the explanation.

[Pete Dunk]

You're very welcome Mike, I do hope my reply doesn't sound too 'clever clogs' which is not my intention at all. You've obviously got to grips with the basics of abc very well but as always the devil is in the detail. I play English btw so your tune throws up different challenges for me than it does for an anglo or moothy player.

 

Pete.