Roger Hare

Good! That's pretty much what I'm doing. I shall carry on in the same vein! I see/hear a lot of tunes which seem not to finish 'correctly', and there is usually an obvious way to end them 'nicely' - I will be a little less hesitant about doing this in future... I also see tunes in which the key sig. is a little 'odd' to put it mildly (eg: X instead of possibly Xmin). There are usually obvious solutions - which I will be applying in future (there are also instances where it's not so obvious - klezmer for instance - proceed with caution). Thanks!

I'm always on the look-out for 'tunes I never heard of before' and I downloaded that collection to investigate further, so thanks for the heads-up about the possible errors in the scores. I spotted the under-full bar in the featured tune when I ABC'd it, and did what I usually do in such circumstances - which is to either stick in a rest, or double (or halve) the duration of a note (usually at the start/end of the relevant 'part' of the music). I also spotted and fixed the missing dots. It's encouraging to know that the real experts do the same sort of thing as a numptie like me. I see lots of such 'errors', sometimes in the score (as in this instance) but more often in 'legacy' ABC files. I have learned to recognise a long list of what I see as ABC transcription errors which may have been present in the original score, but which I speculate are usually transcription errors. Sometimes, the errors are so 'obvious' that I can spot different copies of the same transcription in different downloaded ABC files because they have exactly the same errors.[1] A general question: How does one decide what the error is, and what are the 'forensic' skills needed to fix them? Is it a purely mechanical process, or does one need an extensive knowledge of musical theory to fix stuff like this in an 'authoritative' way? How does one decide (for instance) that in this case, bars 7 and 8 should look like bars 15 and 16? Thanks _____________________________ [1] I've seen as many as seven copies of exactly the same transcription (with errors) in different places...

I agree that using acids is scary. I've successfully used dilute oxalic acid to help strip the varnish from wooden sailing dinghies, and dilute acetic acid to clean vintage chess boards, but I don't think I'd go anywhere near a concertina with any form of acid. I agree that over-restoring can damage the 'ambience' of a vintage instrument. I very occasionally give the wooden ends of my instruments a polish with a good-quality beeswax based polish - very little polish - and only a moderate amount of elbow grease. Works for me. Comments from the experts? Am I doing it right? Ta. ______________________ I also use a top-quality oil-based polish on my chess pieces, but I don't think I'd go near a concertina with a liquid-based polish...

My other programs (1. generating 'statistics' for large ABC files; 2. extracting tunes from an ABC file, using Unix-style Regular Expressions as the extraction criteria; 3. re-formatting a file, and doing some optimisation of ABC code) simply treat the whole exercise as simple manipulation of a text file. It's ABC files, but it could be knitting patterns(!). Effectively, I am 'parsing' the ABC file, but at a very simple level. I'm sitting a long way downstream from the programs which do fully parse ABC code, and I wouldn't want to take it any further... Heh! I think my model is using button 8 because even my (hard-wired) so-called 'cross-row' mappings stick with 'along-the-row' button allocations for the left-hand! Something else I need to address when I try to incorporate 'intelligent' button selection into the program(s)...

Thanks for that extremely fast response! I used the time between my question and your reply to quickly enter the tune in ABC, and run it past my software, and I now see your original was for C/G. Interesting! Given the different approaches we are using, there is adequate agreement between the two. One difference in this particular case, is that my stuff generates left-hand button 8 in the penultimate bar, whereas yours generates left-hand button 5. I think I know why this happens. (Another difference is that my stuff does not generate tabs for chords (multi-headed notes, if you prefer). At some point, I need to look at how to do these - they are outwith the original design parameters for my programs, and I haven't bothered so far...) I've put this one on the back-burner recently while I do other stuff. I need to pick it up again to try and implement 'intelligent' choice of buttons where there is an alternative. It will be a much less sophisticated approach than the one you are using, but still 'viable', I hope. My winter project, I think...

May I ask whether those tabs are for a C/G or a G/D concertina? I'd like to try that out on the same tune with my own software (which uses a slightly different approach), and I need to know if it's for C/G or G/D. Thanks.

That's truly amazing! I'd like to see more pictures too, plus a sound recording if possible? I presume that a Lachenal layout would be possible? I'll say it again - amazing!

I don't look here every day, and I missed this first time around - I only clocked it when I saw the Festive Learning thread, and had a look back... I don't know if they tell you how to play a demisemiquaver, but there are a couple of other, more recent English tutors available on-line - they may suit you better? From Alistair Anderson and Frank Butler.

No - entirely my fault I'm afraid! My light-hearted remark about modal tunes was meant to be just that - light hearted, and I think it may have clouded the issue. Presumably, 'modal' tunes can be notated using this system, we just won't see the Cmaj, DDor, Gmix key signatures we're used to (if you happen to be using ABC, that is). Mea culpa! My apologies for confusing things!

Thank you for that admirably clear explanation of 'how it works'. I got well tangled-up in the Wikipedia link I posted. I only 'knew' of its existence because my nephew and his missis play French Horn in a symphony orchestra in China, and they've come across it with reference to traditional Chinese music... [1] So, no mixolydian or dorian tunes then...🙂

It looks like it might be Jianpu notation, modified to look a little like Gary Coover's notation, but without the actual staff... Edit: Oh! I just saw the modified tablature posted a few minutes ago. The numbers have changed, but It still looks like Jianpu might have been the start point. The geography is right...

> So he didn't make a whole genre of music the butt of his joke? No, I don't think he did...

...and it wasn't C**** T*****...

Il y a au moins une partition disponible sur MuseScore, mais pas compatible avec l'accordéon, et Je pense que vous devrez payer pour cela. J'ai posé la question à mon beau-frère (il joue de la guitare 'Gypsy Jazz') et il pense que c'est devrait être assez facile à apprendre 'Minor Swing' "à l'oreille" (ce qu'il a fait à la guitare). Je pense qu'il sera difficile de trouver une partition adaptée à l'accordéon. Bonne chance!

Over a period of about 20 years, I have been to many "Irish" sessions at sailing/music festivals in Brittany, as a listener rather than as a player. My experience largely mirrored that of John Wild.

Nigel Sture, in deepest, darkest, Devonshire? Concertinas-UK is the name he operates under...

Thanks! I very rarely buy stuff at auction. The last time (several years ago), the premium was 15% + VAT for a total of 18%. As you say, 'Nice work if you can get it.'!

The most 'surprising' thing for me is the 'buyer's premium' -a whopping 30%. Is that 'normal'?

I modified one of my own programs to make different choices of which button to select (when there are alternatives). It was a 'proof-of-concept' exercise, and I chose the button using what I can only call a 'weighted-random' approach which is (literally!) worse than doing nothing! The next step is to replace the 'random' code with something which makes 'sensible' choices. I don't anticipate anything happening any time soon - that sort of clever programming is a bit above my pay grade at the moment - interesting though, if you are that way inclined...

To which you can add that many of them aren't - shanties, that is. I think that 'battle' has been well and truly lost. Having spent a certain amount of time on large-ish yachts, pulling sails up and down in 'orrible weather at 2-o-clock in the morning, the last thing on my mind was singing bloody shanties! Those old-time sailors must have been incredibly tough...

If the OP is particularly interested in shanties, they could track down a copy of 'Sea Shanties' by Stan Hugill. The copy I'm looking at just now is published by Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1977, 0 214 20329 8. Like all Hugill's books, it's very chatty - lots of information, plus nice clear scores (and lyrics), simple melody line only. I don't know offhand if it's still in print, or whether a search for a 2nd-hand copy will be necessary... The OP can also find free English concertina tutorials here (Alistair Anderson) and here (Frank Butler). Oh, aye, there's also a set of notes on arranging music for the English here (Frank Butler). Oh, aye, again, there's a record/CD Concertina Workshop to accompany Alistair Anderson's tutorial. I have all the tracks, but I don't have the record, so I must have downloaded them from somewhere - Alistair Anderson's own web site maybe?A great listen in their own right!

I didn't know about Felt Hat Day - thank you for the heads-up...😊 I will certainly be wearing my felt hat (the one in the picture) at Morris practice on Thursday...

[1] I think that's absolutely correct. I am a daily user of ABC, and use EasyABC as my preferred 'tool'. Being realistic, it's never done everything I would like, but it manages about 95%. However, as DB states, recent versions have behaved a little peculiarly in some ways, so I've stuck with version 1.3.7.7. It started out doing 95% of what I want, and it continues to do 95% of what I want. Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I'm content with that... [2] I come from the opposite end of the music spectrum - unlike DB, I couldn't read a note when I started using ABC, but using [Easy]ABC has helped me to read music just a little. Without that slender knowledge, I would never have been in a position to ask the question which I raised in the OP. (Maybe I should have kept stum and never have asked the question in the first place?) [3] Precisely - the word uncomplicated really nails it down for me...

Expresses my view of the main advantages of ABC over some other music systems far more neatly than I could! That final point is perhaps relevant here. As I hinted in my OP, I suspected that in this case, the ABC represented what was written on the original MS (though I have no proof). In this case, I deliberately removed the original source, and the name of the transcriber before posting, because I wasn't sure of the source of the error (if indeed there was an error)... Normally, when posting any ABC, as a matter of courtesy, and of information, I will leave in the details of both the source and the transcriber, including a rider to the effect that I may have edited the tune slightly, but in this case, it wasn't necessary...

Thanks for that speedy response! [1] Visual inspection makes me think that your fingering is for a C/G concertina? I need to go and get brekker, right now, but I'll look at this later, and generate the ABC for a C/G so I can compare my fixed fingering with your optimised fingering. [2] I'd love to incorporate the sort of heuristic optimisation you are using into my own programs. Maybe we need to talk (offline) a little further down the road, after I've looked into the techniques you mention...