Roger Hare

[1] Which is why I started my 'programming project' to automatically write the tabs into the score. My main squeeze is G/D, and my go-to tab system is ABT which is why the tone of my post was a bit hesitant... [2] Part 1: Thassright. Part 2: As DB says - Thassrighttoo [3] To me, the push on L7 felt 'better' than the pull on L3 but it's probably a personal thing - if my experience with 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' is anything to go by, there are several billion ways to play the tune anyway

Nice tune! It's early in the morning here, I haven't put my brains in yet; I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet; and I don't usually use GC's numbering system, but I think there may be a couple of glitches in your ABC script? 1) I think you may have 'inverted' push and pull? 2) Those Fs have to be sharp as the tune is in D - so it can't be played entirely on the C-row? What you show as pushes on L4 have to be pulls on L7, I think... Here is the tablature generated by my (experimental) tabbing program: %%MIDI program 23 X:1 T:Je Voyage Tout Partout L:1/4 M:4/4 K:D %2-sharps (nominal key of D) x2 D E | "D" F>F F F | "D7" F>F F E | "G" D> E D B, | w: \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ w: L3 L4 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L4 L3 L4 L3 L2 GC w: Je vo-ya-ge tout par-tout, de Ta-hi-ti jus-qu'au Wal- w: I have trav-elled ev-ery where from Ta-hi-ti far as Wal- D2 D E | "D" F3 D | "Bm" D> E F F | "A" E>A A B | w: \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ w: L3 L3 L4 L7 L3 L3 L4 L7 L7 L4 L5 L5 R1 GC w: lis, des Fid-ji jus-qu'en Nou-velles Hé-brides, Va-nu-a- w: lis, from Fi-ji far as New He-bri-des, Va-nu-a- A2 D E | "D" F>F F F | "D7" F>F F E | "G" D> E D B, | w: \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ w: L5 L3 L4 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L7 L4 L3 L4 L3 L2 GC w: tu, la Ca-lé-do-nie aus-si, je la con-nais, c'est mon pa- w: tu, New Cal-le-do-ni-a too, I know it well, it's where I'm D D D E | "D" F3 F | "A" E> E F E | "D" D4 |] w: \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ * * \_\_ * \_\_ w: L3 L3 L3 L4 L7 L7 L4 L4 L7 L4 L3 GC w: ys mais je pré-fère les Î-les Sous le Vent. w: from, but I pre-fer the Lee- __ ward Isles. The ABC is a little more complicated as I denote pull using a second w: line to add 'over-bars' to the tabs where it's necessary, but the PDF looks OK(-ish), I think? As far as possible it's all on the C-row, but those Fs are necessarily on the G-row. The pulls on L3 can be substituted with pushes on L7, and if you have a 'standard' layout, the pulls on L2 with pushes on L6... I hope I got that right - I don't usually do this stuff this early in the day... Je Voyage Tout Partout.pdf

Have you tried asking on melodeon.net? There is some cross-over between there and here, but you may stand a better chance of a positive reply 'over there'?

I just stumbled across a whole series of videos by Chris Walshaw, describing the use of ABC. I haven't seen these mentioned anywhere, but apologies if they have already been mentioned. They are all of fairly recent 'vintage'. They may be of interest to some? They can be found here. x-posted to melodeon.net.

A new version of Guido Gonzato's "Making Music with ABC 2" manual is now available. It can be downloaded as a .zip file (includes midi and mp3 sound files) from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/abcplus/files/Abcplus/abcplus_en-2021-10-18.zip/download

I'm not a MuseScore user, but I can confirm that the 'sampled concertina sound font' to which Don is referring is not bad at all - I experimented with it fairly completely ~4-5 years ago while deciding whether to become a MuseScore user or an ABC user... ________ I wish that such a feature were available in ABC...

Absolutement, mon general! As has been pointed out here on several occasions by folks far more knowledgeable than myself, a 20-button Anglo is very versatile. I started with a vintage 20-button, and knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have it any other way. I know of two folks who've bought a Wren in the last 18 months or so. One of them baled out and bought a Marcus within about 9 months (not 6). A 'drop-out' rate of 50% is a little too high for my taste. OK, it's a small sample, but it's still statistically significant. I had a look just now. There are five 20-button Anglos (all C/G, Lachenal or Jones) in the price range £400-£750. Two of them are £400 - less than a Wren. I bought a cheap concertina in ~1970. It was so bad that I was discouraged and never touched a concertina for more than 40 years - to my everlasting regret...

"Absolute Beginners Concertina" by Mick Bramich is also a good starter... You could also buy him a copy of "The Anglo-German Concertina: A Social History" (2 vols.) by Dan Worrall. Even if he never lays a hand on a concertina, he will have a damn' good read...😎 Buying a low(ish)-end concertina like the Wren sounds a little risky to me...

If you really want to impress 'em, try 'em with a 'Halloween' tune... Hallowe'en.pdf

Me too but with yet another system (same numbering, and uses L and R for left and right though). Useful, as I discovered and fixed, an error in the software I use to generate tabbed scores like this. Two versions attached: (1) uses the Australian Bush Traditions system (my personal favourite). (2) uses a modified form of the ABT system (it uses an over-score rather than a ^ to denote a pull). I've been trying this modification for the last week or so as, on average, the tabs take up a little less space. I think they are both basically the same as papawemba's, except for that G in bar 6 - my software chooses a button on the C-row, papawemba chooses a button on the accidentals row. ---------------------- Later edit: Now I think about it, in appearance, papawemba's tab looks a little like the French CADB system for melodeon - in that case, the horizontal rows are 'Poussez' and 'Tirez', and there is a variant where there is one horizontal row for each row of the melodeon... Using one or other of these approaches, it should be possible to develop several other 'new' systems for Anglo tablature. Somehow, I find that idea a little daunting/depressing...☹️ Hedwig's Theme(1).pdf Hedwig's Theme(2).pdf

Scholer certainly made G/D Anglos. I think an identifying criterion may be the dimension of the flats - they were 4" (6.9" across-the-flats, I think). Other companies made them, I have a 'Commander' which is pretty similar (and not very effective). I won't be trading in my Marcus or Lachenal G/Ds any time soon. There are some videos on YouTube dealing with Scholers. One of them is here.

An update - I just received a message from Edward Jay from which it is apparent that he is now producing '3-d printed' Anglos. As it happens, I'm not in the market for one at the moment, but I thought that a 'heads-up' here might be useful...

I think this is correct, though there seems to be some question about whether it was actually Alf Edwards on the screen in that early scene in the film. See: Arthur, D., Bert - The Life and Times of A. L. Lloyd, pp.226-227, Pluto Press, London, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-7453-3252-9.

[1] My pleasure - all part of the service. Good to know that those MIDI files helped. [2] Yes, notes in a printed score. I have attached an example of what I mean by a 'large-print' score. You can see that you can do different things. In the second example: (a) the note heads have the note name superimposed; (b) the accompaniment chords are in a box to make them more prominent. I haven't done so, but I could also add simple tabs, at the cost of reducing the text size so each tune fits on a single page... ________________________________________ [1] Meine freude - alles teil des dienstes. Gut zu wissen, dass diese MIDI-dateien geholfen haben. [2] Ja, anmerkungen in einer gedruckten partitur. Ich habe ein beispiel dafür beigefügt, was ich mit einer 'großdruck'-partitur meine. Sie können sehen, dass sie verschiedene dinge tun können. Im zweiten beispiel: (a) haben die notenköpfe die notizname eingeblendet; (b) die begleitakkorde sind in einer box, um sie hervorzuheben. Ich habe dies nicht getan, aber ich könnte auch einfache registerkarten hinzufügen, auf kosten der textgröße, damit jede melodie passt auf eine seite... bkb.pdf

[1] Are you able to read scores at all? For example, a 'large-print' score? [2] Meantime, I've attached simple MIDI renderings of the C and G scores posted as a PDF by GC way back towards the top of this thread. Some folks hate these MIDI files, and while I agree, they are a bit spotty, they can be useful. Me - I love 'em...😎 Don Taylor (of this parish) has a sampled concertina sound font for MuseScore on his Google Drive here, but I can't remember how to install it, so I can't generate those better quality sound files I'm afraid...☹️ Bonnie Kirkwall Bay - C.mid Bonnie Kirkwall Bay - G.mid

Thanks for that - looks as if all three of those are still available at low cost. I may well follow that up.

Excellent! Perhaps I should have said that what I do when this happens is to open the file with a text editor, use the 'save as' option to save it to a different file name, and then rename the new file with the original file name. If you have any questions, please ask... Splendid! Thank you! I collect these URLs for online ABC tune collections so that in the pub', I can amaze my friends with my encyclopaedic knowledge of these things - how very sad...😎 Roger.

[1] Thanks for that - it looks like a fantastic resource with lots of stuff to go at, in addition to the tunes I asked about! Lovely! I hadn't seen that one before. Thank you! Of course, it may well be that many of the tunes in my small accumulation are already in that larger collection, so the ABC file I attached may not be much use to you, but see below... [2] Hm! That's odd. It's an ABC file. It should download OK as it's straight text, despite the extension. I've attached a second copy, in case anything went wrong first time around. If you have any problems this time, let me know and we can investigate further. I had assumed that you were an ABC user. If not, let me know and I'll generate a PDF file and try sending that. You could try opening the file with a bog-standard text editor like Notepad or Notepad-2 and simply re-saving it. I have occasionally found that this helped with a recalcitrant text file... wales.abc

[1] Me too, so I missed the post about the Blodau'r Grug book. I can see it for sale in a couple of places. Ta! [2] Inspired by your original 2019 post I went looking, and have amassed a small collection of Welsh tunes in ABC format. I was further encouraged to do this by the fact that the session band I'm involved with are planning a new edition of their tune book. We were specifically asked to look for Welsh tunes as they are disastrously under-represented in the current edition. I have attached the ABC for the ~50 tunes I collected so far. The two titles flagged [2] in the quoted panel above aren't in my collection. Do you have ABC or dots for them? wales.abc

Yup! I use a different (terser, more minimal) system (ABT), but: Like GC, I started out writing the tabs on to existing printed music 'by hand'. 'Easy', but slow, tedious and error-prone. I graduated to editing the tabs into ABC files 'by hand' - similarly slow, tedious and error-prone... I got bored, and cheesed off with this and wrote a program to do the job for me - fast and accurate, (but a little wonky when it comes to 'odd' characters like 'over-bar'). My equivalent of the 'PrintMusic'/'Finale' programs, I guess. T'other day just for ducks (🦆🦆🦆), I wrote a 'macro' to convert ABT button numbering to GC button numbering and vice versa - know thy editor...

Yes, that ties in with what I'm remembering. I think we exchanged a couple of mail messages about this plug-in in March or April. I'm not a MuseScore user, but I try and keep up to speed with stuff like this. As you say, maybe in MuseScore 4...

Thanks very much! That clears it up nicely! I did wonder if that was the sort of approach being used. I thought you might be using lilypond, but I 'guessed' that you were using some sort of computer-based system. I haven't heard of Finale before. Me, I'm bone-lazy - a huge pain is something I try to avoid...😎 Thanks again!

Sorry - slight thread drift... If it's not 'commercial in confidence', how do you get the 'over-bars' to indicate a 'pull'? I think two different folks tried (a few months ago) to produce scores similar to yours using ABC and MuseScore. If I remember correctly, both were unable to produce the notes with an 'over-bar'. Using ABC, it's easy to produce a simple 'one-line-of-tabs' rendition (a little like your 'Key of C, melody only', but with a single line of tabs), but even then I can't do the 'over-bars' and use a '^' to indicate a 'pull'. As it happens, I'm perfectly content to use '^' for 'pull' I'm just curious about how to get the 'over-bars'. Thank you.

WCCP = West Country Concertina Players.

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ about the general tenor/tone of the OP, but I finally had time to sit down and spend a little time reviewing the OP - with 4 printed tutors immediately to hand to check the detail of the points made in the OP. I can't claim that the process was absolutely exhaustive but a few extra points popped out of the woodwork: 1) Two of the tutors made a pretty fair stab at pointing out the fact that the tabs were 'advisory', and that the duplication of notes in different locations on the concertina allowed for an alternative choice of buttons, allowing 'Better Bellows Control'. This is good... 2) One tutor gave a pretty comprehensible 'left-hand accompaniment' with some (not all) of the tunes. This is good - if that's what floats your boat... 3) In one tutor, poor typography was a 'problem'. This is not so good...