Roger Hare
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Posts posted by Roger Hare
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5 hours ago, John Wild said:
The G at the start of the 1st full bar should be the same length as the G at the start of bar 5. However, that is typed as G4, i.e.twice the length.
I think that that double length applies to the other notes in that bar and the similarly affected bars.
I cannot explain what has happened here, but I am inclined to think that the writer has made errors in the ABC transcription.
If you remove the M:4/4I references, and halve the note length in the affected bars, I think this will give you the correct notation.
I have attached here an image of the relevant page from the book.
John thank you. Your thoughts mirror mine almost exactly. The ABC code you posted a few minutes ago looks more or less exactly like what I came up with as a 'solution'.
Thank you for the image from the book - that saves me a trip to the Music Library in Manchester to have a look at the damn' thing...
4 hours ago, David Barnert said:Comparing @Roger Hare’s abc notation with the pdf that @John Wild provided leads me to think that there’s no way a human being would have come up with that abc solution given what the page of music looks like. My guess is that the abc is the product of some misguided rudimentary* software attempting to interpret the hand-drawn music notation.
*I say “rudimentary” because Roger uses the word “ancient” to describe the sources of the abc and software that can satisfactorily interpret music notation from paper sources is only now becoming reasonably mature.
David thank you. I had not thought of this stuff being the product of 'software', but I am now inclined to think that your observation that "there’s no way a human being would have come up with that abc solution given what the page of music looks like" may well be at the bottom of how this stuff appears[1]. I wonder if anyone is still using such software?
The rudimentary nature of any such software might help to 'explain' why in different contexts the 'solutions' appear to be completely different...
I just (a few minutes ago) found another example - M:9/8l this time - also from Northumbrian Minstrelsy - what fun I'm having...
Thanks again both...
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[1] I have however occasionally seen examples of tunes which are clearly printed/written as 4/4 (say) being transcribed as 2/2, or vice versa. I dunno why...
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Thanks so much for all the responses! I've forwarded contact details, etc. for all respondents to Frank. I think though, that some of the instruments on offer may be over his price ceilng...
Both Frank and myself are blown away by the number of responses - the power of concertina.net, eh?
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Thanks to those who have responded via PM. I have passed on your contact details to the prospective purchaser.
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3 hours ago, alex_holden said:
Do you mean a maker who has stopped producing new G/Ds or a dealer who doesn't trade in second hand G/Ds? Either way doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe they are buying their reeds in from a third party that has a minimum order quantity or something.
Well now, I wasn't altogether sure myself. I do know that he has looked at some new 'hybrids', and found that they were only available in C/G. I know that he has also spoken with a dealer who was a bit downbeat about the likelihood of finding a vintage G/D any time soon.
It may be he has been on the receiving end of both disappointing responses.
I am in full agreement with your comment "Either way doesn't make much sense to me" if only because in the context of our conversation, we were talking about both vintage and new instruments...
I have done two things:
1) trailed here for prospective vendors (I have received two responses in double-quick time and have passed on contact details)
2) alerted him to the existence of makers of 'hybrid' instruments who will undertake the supply of a G/D instrument
I'm getting good at this - this is the 3rd time I have acted as an 'honest broker' (he said, modestly) in setting up private sales like this. Maybe I should start charging a commission fee...🙂
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Recently I have come across several instances of M:4/4l in ancient ABC transcriptions. For example:
X:2104 T:Coffee and Tea C:Trad S:Northumbrian Minstrelsy M:4/4 O:England F:England K:G "C"ef| "G"g2 d2 BGdB| "G"Gggf ~g2 ed| "G"g2 d2 BGdB| "D7"Aefg ~f2 ed|\ M:4/4l "G"g4 d2c2 B2G2 BcdB|\ M:4/4 "G"Gggf ~g2 ed|\ M:4/4l "G"g4 d2c2 B2G2 BcdB|\ M:4/4 "D7"Aefg ~f2:: ed| "G"BgBg (3def gd| "G"BgBg ~f2 ed| "G"BgBg (3dgf gd| "D7"Aegf gfed|\ M:4/4l "G"B2g2B2g2 fgfe g2d2|\ M:4/4 "G"BgBg ~f2 ed|\ M:4/4l "G"B2g2B2g2 fgfe g2B2|\ M:4/4 "D7"Aefg ~f2|The context is different in different examples. For instance, in the above, the bars following the M:4/4l all appear to be 'overfull', but replacing each instance of M:4/4l with L:1/16, and the following M:4/4 with L:1/8 would supply a 'fix' (of some sort). However I have seen an example (can't find it now) where the 'fix' would be to replace M:4/4l with L:1/4 which is in some sense, exactly the opposite approach. I'm deeply puzzled...
Does anyone have any idea what this means please? I've looked at some 'early' ABC documentation and can't find any reference to this sort of stuff.
Some additional points:
- I've also seen examples of M:6/8l and M:3/4l
- Several of the instances of this seem to be in transcriptions of tunes from Northumbrian Minstrelsy, (though there are others). Is there an ancient transcription of Northumbrian Minstrelsy out there 'in the wild' which has got broken up, and lost any accompanying explanation of what this stuff means?
Any advice welcome.
Ta.
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One of my partners in crime at t'Morris is looking for a used G/D Anglo to complement his current instrument (a 30-button C/G Crabb from the 1960s).
Ideally, he is looking for a 30-button, but a 26- button is acceptable. Ideally he is looking for a vintage instrument, but a qood-quality hybrid would be acceptable. I don't think a new instrument is on the cards (because of the waiting lists...)
I think he would prefer to restrict any transaction to U.K./Europe.
If anyone has one to offer, please let me have your contact information and I will pass it on.
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He has been told by at least one dealer that 'we don't do G/D instruments any more' (or words to that effect), which I personally find a little worrying...
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9 hours ago, John Wild said:
..The last time through, I held on to the last note for longer to make an ending.
This is what I do, with those tunes which otherwise appear to end up 'in the air'.
Either that or add on an extra 'exit' note of appropriate pitch. I assume this is OK?
After all, "no respectable folk musician ever plays what is written in the score"...🙂
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43 minutes ago, Folderol said:
...Being self taught and learning a lot of tunes by ear, I’m not the best at reading music or at understanding
music theory but lord knows I’m trying haha It’s a fun process non the less!
Me too! I try to apply the little theory I have in a 'sensible' way, and also couple it with ear'oling the tunes.
Yes, it is fun. but sometimes it's bloody hard work. Usually, I fall apart completely when I see these final
sometimes (to me) confusing notes (eg: EDC as mentioned by DB). Still, it keeps me off the streets and out
of the public houses...
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17 hours ago, Roger Hare said:
...I'm increasingly uneasy with some of the key sigs. I do see in tunes posted on the internet...
Drifting off-topic...
Purely by chance, a couple of hours after I submitted that post, I came across a 'legacy' script which had been
cast in Cmaj. It was actually in Gmaj - except it wasn't - it was really (as near as I could tell) in Emin. This stuff
about key sigs. is bewildering for a wretch like me who has a very imperfect, and unstructured knowledge of
music theory. My limited understanding of this key sig. business is that a 'key sig.' does not indicate the actual
key of a tune, but indicates the modal scale which is used for the tune - ie: the number of flats/sharps in that
scale, (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, etc.) The real key is deduced (by real musicians) from the actual structure of
the tune - which leaves a worm like me with my 'bum oot the windae', if I may use a colloquialism from North
of the Border...
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2 hours ago, David Barnert said:
...apropos of nothing, there’s no way it’s in D dorian. As notated by the abc above, it’s in A minor....
No arguments from me - if I use an automagic chord generator to add simple chords, the result does very strongly
suggest that it's in Amin.
As a general rule, I'm not competent enough to assign a key sig. with any confidence, but I'm increasingly uneasy
with some of the key sigs. I do see in tunes posted on the internet...
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8 hours ago, Folderol said:
...I’m wondering what key would best suit this tune on the squeeze box as I’m still a newbie. When I try to mimic what I did on the fiddle I feel like the notes are going to low and this throws me off!... (my emphasis)
A somewhat naive suggestion, but have you tried simply transposing the whole thing up by one octave (so the key is unchanged)? I just did this, and looking at the score, it looks as if it would 'work'. I haven't tried it because it's 5am here, and I don't want to wake the neighbours.
Here's the ABC code I ended up with...
X:1 T:The Gael M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=90 R:Jig K:Ddor | ~A3 fed | edc dcG | ~A3 fed | edc dcA | | ~c3 ~e3 | gee ede | ~c3 ~e3 | gee ede | | ~f3 fef | gff fed | ~e3 ede | gee edc | | d3 dcd | fed edc | ded dcd | fed edc |-
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1 hour ago, David Barnert said:
I’m not into tabs, being a Hayden player [1] who has been reading music notation all my life, but
[2] doesn’t Michael Eskin’s abc tools create tabs from abc at the touch of a button?
[1] Lucky man - I came late to the game, and being realistic about it, am never going to be a competent 'on-the-fly' sight reader...
[2] Yes, but I think I'm right in saying that ME's program doesn't supply full harmonic tablature (if I can call it that) as illustrated
in Steve Moore's OP. It's 'melody-only', I think.
My earlier post was merely re-inforcing Steve's point that it's hard work creating that sort of stuff. I was using different tabs (Mick
Bramich) and different software (OpenOffice). It was a bit of a grind. I packed it in after doing ~50 tunes this way - the little grey
cells just rebelled! I think it was easier doing the Bramich tabs than it would be doingSteve's full harmonic accompaniment, so hats
off to him...
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3 hours ago, Steve Moore said:
Word, saved as a PDF; it's a bit of work etc..
Thank you! Too much work for me! I think this was discussed here a while back when the consensus
emerged that ABC didn't have the capability to do all those horizontal lines. I thought you might have
uncovered a piece of software which did the job in one hit.
I can add simple (melody only) tabs but I didn't bother in my post (up there somewhere ^^^) as I don't
use GC's system, and the main point was to add the words for folks to look at...
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Later edit: Yeah, I'd almost forgotten, I used this sort of approach myself a while back. I abandoned it fairly quickly - simply
too much work. I ended up with something like the attachment (which uses Mick Bramich's tablature). This clearly comes
from my 'transition' period - the score at the top has been run through an early program to automatically generate the chords.
The pure Mick Bramich tablature at the bottom has been 'hand-crafted'. I think that example dates from 2018.
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2 hours ago, Geoffrey Crabb said:
[1] ...one would be hard pressed to find an original concertina one, adapting may have to be the answer.
[2] Picture of Music clip anchor in Salvation Army instrument
[1] I have one which was gifted me by (I think) a member of this parish some time ago. I believe they are known as 'lyres', because of the shape. I suspect it may be larger than the ones which came with Salvation Army 'tinas?
[2] There is a mounting point on my George Jones Ab/Eb Salvation Army Anglo, though I don't quite see how it all worked because the mounting point is obscured by the hand-strap?
Unfortunately, the two items don't match each other and I can't see an easy way to adapt either one to ensure an elegant mating of the lyre to the 'tina...🙁
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An
On 12/31/2023 at 9:04 PM, Steve Moore said:Heard this on public radio, often as a song, a number of times through this holiday season...
An afterthought. May I ask what software you are using to generate that tablature? Thank you
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> Heard this on public radio, often as a song, a number of times through this holiday season...
And here are the words...
No tabs as I don't use GC-style tabs and don't want to confuse the issue...
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3 hours ago, Jody Kruskal said:
Try holding the button down while tapping the end plate with a handy finger.
Oh good - I thought I had 'invented' this technique ~4 years ago. It's nice that some-one who knows what they are talking about is recommending it.
It works! I wonder, does the effectiveness of the technique increase with the speed of the finger-tap? (I'm a very slow tapper...)
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5 hours ago, LR71 said:
...I'm talking about writing down which buttons were used, not just the notes... (my emphasis)
If that's the case. have a look at this PDF. Posted by Gary Coover in (I think) 2014.
There are more button numbering schemes there than you can shake a stick at.
The system I use isn't there - because it wasn't developed till ~2015...
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3 hours ago, Takayuki YAGI said:
This paper is now Chapter 4 of a book "The Anglo-German concertina - A social history" (Volume 1).
I think this may be available as a download at:
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1 hour ago, Michael Eskin said:
So, one of the Holy Grails of ABC playback, besides having some swing, is to get the ornamentation to sound at least reasonably good.
Most solutions haven't done such a great job.
Based on some observations from Michael Long about the way that abcjs does ornamentation by default, tonight I set upon coming up with a much better solution, and I'm very happy with this initial experiment....Nice! I didn't know about the 'R' abbreviation for !roll! Sounds good...
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I also spent a few minutes experimenting with this, and comparing it with what EasyABC does. There's some similarity - in EasyABC ~ seems not to work at the very start of a tune (or some tunes, anyway), whereas R does. T (or !trill!) sometimes causes havoc within EasyABC, completely mangling playback. I've always got around this by replacing the T with a ~ which is really a 'quick-and-dirty' solution. Maybe I should try R instead...
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On 12/17/2023 at 1:54 PM, John Wild said:
I have taken the liberty of typing this in ABC. I hope that is OK.
This unfortunately has to be minus your anglo tablature as I am not sure how to accommodate that in ABC notation. (my emphasis)
X:339
T:Joy to the Person of My Love
T:17th cent. Scots song/air in Am
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:Am
|:"Am"a2 ef "C"g3c|"Dm"defg "Am"e3e|"Dm"dcBA "E"B3A|"Am"A4-A4:|
|:"Am"ABcd "Em"e2 ab|"Am"c'a"G"bg "F"a2 ef|"C"g2 f/e/d/c/ "G"d3c|"C"c4-c4:|
|:"C"g2 ec "Em"g3g|"Am"aAcd "Em"e3e|"Dm"dcBA "E"B3A|"Am"A4-A4:|The 'easiest' ways to add tabs are using 1) text annotations; 2) lyrics (w:) lines; 3) symbol (s:) lines. There are pluses and minuses for each approach, and all are to some extent 'messy'...
The code below is an edited version of the code posted by John Wild, and uses method 2) which is my preferred option. Using '^' for pull can be replaced with '_' for pull, though this uses two w: lines for each line of tabs...
X:339 T:Joy to the Person of My Love %A lightly edited version of a tune posted on concertina.net by user John Wild, 17 December 2023 T:17th cent. Scots song/air in Amin T:Tabs added using 'dummy' lyrics using w: lines M:4/4 L:1/8 Q:100 K:Amin %naturals (nominal key of C) |: "Am" a2 ef "C" g3 c | "Dm" defg "Am" e3 e | "Dm" dcBA "E" B3 A | "Am" A4- A4 :| w: R4^ R2 R3^ R3 R1 | R2^ R2 R3^ R3 R2 R2 | R2^ R1 R1^ L1^ R1^ L1^ | L1^ L1^ | ABTCGA |: "Am" ABcd "Em" e2 ab | "Am" c'a"G"bg "F" a2 ef | "C" g2 f/e/d/c/ "G" d3 c | "C" c4- c4 :| w: L1^ R1^ R1 R2^ R2 R4^ R5^ | R4 R4^ R5^ R3 R4^ R2 R3^ | R3 R3^ R2 R2^ R1 R2^ R1 | R1 R1 | ABTCGA |: "C" g2 ec "Em" g3 g | "Am" aAcd "Em" e3 e | "Dm" dcBA "E" B3 A | "Am" A4- A4 :| w: R3 R2 R1 R3 R3 | R4^ L1^ R1 R2^ R2 R2 | R2^ R1 R1^ L1^ R1^ L1^ | L1^ L1^ | ABTCGA-
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6 hours ago, jwinship said:
...Here's Billy Pigg playing it on the Northumbrian pipes, with all three parts...
I have that LP too - it's a cracker...
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On 12/10/2023 at 12:49 AM, John Wild said:
I use a small paint brush with soft bristles.
One that was acquired with this use in mind, and has never actually been used as a paint brush.
I've used a soft tooth brush with some success - careful - the bristles in a soft tooth brush are a little 'harder' than those in a soft paint brush...
Afterthought: ...which, of course, has never actually been used as a tooth brush...🙂
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7 hours ago, McCarthy said:
Roger, glad to hear the information provided was useful. I can see how a auto chord generator would be fairly accurate but still have some inconsistencies.
All I meant by the pre-emptive 2 note upbeat not being there is that it is not included in the Talisk tubebook melody for this song. Each part or section of the song starts off on that G#, just doesn't include the F# E leading into it. But it is included in the Session link and ABC notation for the song provided. It doesn't really change the song much it just helps with transitions. I just wanted to include that point to help clarify where the chords land relative to the bars.
Thank you for that clarification! I suspected that what you have said might be the case...
These chord generators are a mixed blessing - they are great for a numptie like me who can't reliably create legitimate chord sequences, but they do sometimes produce what are clearly slightly wacky results. They can be quite useful for detecting (and then correcting) slightly off-colour ABC code - an under-/over-full bar, or incorrectly coded triplet will often sound distinctly weird when played back with added accompaniment chords - however awful the chords may be in themselves...
The generators are not well-documented - using them is a bit like cutting a cake with a blunt knife in an unlit cellar, while blindfolded and wearing boxing gloves...
What does M:4/4l mean please...?
in Teaching and Learning
Posted
Ah! Thank you for that - that will save me a deal of messing about!