Help Needed Deciphering A Tune

[Pete Dunk]

I've just transcribed a tune from the scan of an old manuscript and I've had to make a few assumptions due to the poor reproduction of the music. All was well until I played about with the key signature, which I had assumed to be F as this is the note that all three sections of the music ends with. Just out of interest I changed the key to C (or more correctly in my thinking F Lydian) and it sounds fine in that key too. I'm still inclined to leave it in F because that's my gut feeling but I'm appealing to those with better musical knowledge than I have to check this through and give an opinion on my transcription including the assumed time signature of 2/2. The abc and picture of the tune in the manuscript book are below.

 

X:145

T:Bury Fair. Walsh4 volume1.145

N:Title, key and time signature are all indistinct in

N:the manuscript and have been assumed as written here.

%

N:The F minim at the end of the second section has

N:been dotted to correct an obvious musical error.

%

M:C|

L:1/8

Z:vmp. Peter Dunk 2013

B:Walsh, The Compleat Country Dancing Master Volume 4. 1740

Q:1/2=120

K:F

d2|c2A2 A2F2|G4 C3d|c2A2 A2GF|\

F4F2||f2|c2f2 e2f2|

g2G2 G2g2|c2f2 efge|f6||\

c2|dcBA BAGF|GFED C2c2|

dcBA BAGF|F6||d2|c2f2 e2f2|\

g2G2 G2f2|c2f2 efge|f6|]

 

 

[Pete Dunk]

I have to say that the copy I have is slightly clearer that this as I used Print Screen to copy it from the 200 + page PDF I have to work from.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Pete,

 

since I'm busy today I provide you with a probably better copy of the tune to begin with:

 

 

I'll come back to this later on.

Best wishes - Wolf

[Pete Dunk]

That must be from a later version of Walsh. Thanks Wolf, it answers all of my questions!

[Wolf Molkentin]

That must be from a later version of Walsh. Thanks Wolf, it answers all of my questions!

 

Fine! I took it from my PDF copy of Playford, The Dancing Master.

[cboody]

Here's a copy from the John Chambers site. Looks like F maj wins out. I'm quite sure I can see the flat signature in your original pdf, just as it is in the better one.

 

X: 1
T: Bury Fair
T: Betty Fair
O: 1698
M: 2/2
L: 1/8
K: F
|: d2 | "F"c2A2 A2F2 | "C"G4 C3d | "F"c2A2 "C"A2GF | "F"F6 :|
|: f2 | "F"c2f2 e2f2 | "C"g2G2 G2f2 | "F"c2f2 "C"efge | "F"f6 :|
|: c2 |"Bb"dcBA BAGF | "C"GFED C2c2 |"Bb"dcBA "C"BAGF | "F"F6 :|
f2 | "F"c2f2 e2f2 | "C"g2G2 G2f2 | "F"c2f2 "C"efge | "F"f6 ||
c2 |"Bb"dcBA BAGF | "C"GFED C2c2 |"Bb"dcBA "C"BAGF | "F"F6 |]

Edited July 3, 2013 by cboody

[David Barnert]

For anybody who doesn't know about John Chambers' Tune Finder site, here it is:

 

http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind

 

It answered the question handily.

[Robin Harrison]

hi David...............not being completely au fait with abc,( although I do use it,) it's not 100% clear to me what this site does. Do you input abc tunes or paste them in ?

Someone mentioned elsewhere on this site there was/is trouble with the tune converter. I was unable to convert the abc of this month's TOTM in 2 different sites...........is there a issue out there?

thanks

Robin

[Pete Dunk]

Someone mentioned elsewhere on this site there was/is trouble with the tune converter. I was unable to convert the abc of this month's TOTM in 2 different sites...........is there a issue out there?

 

 

 

The problem seems to be with this forums spacing of text that that has been copied and pasted. I just copied Bury Fair from my own post and pasted it into the Tune-O-Tron (and into Notepad just to make sure) and there is a blank line between each line of text. This is an absolute no-no with abc so the carriage returns need to be edited out to convert the file. Those blank lines weren't there when I wrote the post! I'm now going to experiment with recent and older posts in Something For The Weekend just to see what happens.

[Pete Dunk]

This is serious! Every abc file now appears with double spacing between each line of text rendering them useless until all of the extra carriage returns are edited out.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Using free "EasyABC" (or similar, I assume) software never causes such problems...

 

Just saying...

[Pete Dunk]

I've now narrowed this problem down to being Internet Explorer specific. It doesn't happen with Chrome or Firefox. I have no choice about the browser I use at work as that's specified by the network manager and until recently it was fine, I never use IE at home but having tried it tonight and finding the same problem including pasting the tune to ABC Explorer and Easy ABC. If anyone else has IE and another browser installed could you please check this out and report back, thanks.

[Pete Dunk]

Further research proves this to be Internet Explorer and concertina.net specific! I've tried a few other sites and the abc files are normal on those as they are in other browsers. Very odd!

 

Edit: Typo.

Edited July 4, 2013 by tallship

[David Barnert]

hi David...............not being completely au fait with abc,( although I do use it,) it's not 100% clear to me what this site does. Do you input abc tunes or paste them in ?

You type in the name of a tune and it finds everywhere on the web where the tune appears in abc format, offering you a range of choices of how you want to see or hear the tune (gif, pdf, midi, text, etc.).