Je Voyage Tout Partout

[Owen Anderson]

My first attempt at transcribing a tune for Anglo concertina, a simple French Polynesian children's song with lyrics in both French and English (my translation). As my first attempt, I've arranged it using only the C row, and almost entirely on the left hand. I'm sure it would be more playable (better bellows direction spacing) using both rows. I've used wedge marks above the staff to indicate pull notes, and I used the button numbering from gcoover's books.

 

X:1
T:Je Voyage Tout Partout
L:1/4
M:4/4
K:D
V:1 treble
V:1
 x2 D !wedge! E | "D" F>F F F | "D7" F>F F !wedge! E | "G" D> !wedge! E D B, |
w: L3 L2 | L4 L4 L4 L4 | L4 L4 L4 L4 | L3 L4 L3 L2 |
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 !wedge! E | "D" F3 D | "Bm" D> !wedge! E F F | "A" !wedge! E>A A B |
w: L3 L3 L4 | L4 L3 | L3 L4 L4 L4 | L4 L5 L5 R1 |
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 !wedge! E | "D" F>F F F | "D7" F>F F !wedge! E | "G" D> !wedge! E D B, |
w: L5 L3 L4 | L4 L4 L4 L4 | L4 L4 L4 L4 | L3 L4 L3 L2 |
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 !wedge! E | "D" F3 F | "A" !wedge! E> !wedge! E F !wedge! E | "D" D4 |]
w: L3 L3 L3 L4 | L4 L4 | L4 L4 L4 L4 | L3
w: ys mais je pré-fère les Î-les Sous le Vent.
w: from, but I pre-fer the Lee- __ ward Isles.

 

 

voyage.pdf

Edited November 10, 2021 by resistor

[Roger Hare]

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

Edited November 11, 2021 by lachenal74693

[Owen Anderson]

I did the ABC by hand, which explains the mistakes.

 

1. You're right, I inverted the bellows notation. You can just read it as wedge indicating push rather than pull.

 

2. You're right, of course. I got fooled by the fact that the ABC notation for the notes doesn't include the sharp. I checked it against another transcription and played it back with MIDI and it sounded correct... Do you know if there's any option to explicitly indicate that the F is F# rather than in the ABC notation?

 

In terms of playability, I think it might improve the bellows direction handling to play some or all of the D's on L7 rather than L3.

Edited November 11, 2021 by resistor

[Owen Anderson]

I also want to try transposing it up an octave to the right hand, opening up the left hand for the accompaniment chords.

[David Barnert]

13 minutes ago, resistor said:

Do you know if there's any option to explicitly indicate that the F is F# rather than in the ABC notation?

Not clear what you mean by this question. In abc notation, there are 2 ways to indicate an F#: in the key signature (for instance, K:D) and at the individual note: ^F (the “^” takes the place of a “#” sign). If that doesn’t answer your question, you’ll have to make the question clearer.

 

6 minutes ago, resistor said:

I also want to try transposing it up an octave to the right hand, opening up the left hand for the accompaniment chords.

I'm not an anglo player, so I can’t help you with this one.

[Roger Hare]

2 hours ago, resistor said:

[1] I did the ABC by hand, which explains the mistakes.

 

[2] 1. You're right, I inverted the bellows notation. You can just read it as wedge indicating push rather than pull.

  .

[2] 2. You're right, of course. I got fooled by the fact that the ABC notation for the notes doesn't include the sharp. I checked it against another transcription and played it back with MIDI and it sounded correct... Do you know if there's any option to explicitly indicate that the F is F# rather than in the ABC notation?

 

[3] In terms of playability, I think it might improve the bellows direction handling to play some or all of the D's on L7 rather than L3.e

[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

[Roger Hare]

3 hours ago, resistor said:

I also want to try transposing it up an octave to the right hand, opening up the left hand for the accompaniment chords.

Here's a quick stab at doing this - ABC and PDF:

%%MIDI program 23
%%measurenb 0

X:1
T:Je Voyage Tout Partout
L:1/8
M:4/4
K:Dmaj %2-sharps (nominal key of D)
x4 d2 e2 | "D" f3 f f2 f2 | "D7" f3 f f2 e2 | "G" d3 e d2 B2 |
w: \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_
w: R2 R2 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R2 R2 R2 R2 R1 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-
d4 d2 e2 | "D" f6 d2 | "Bm" d3 e f2 f2 | "A" e3 a a2 b2 |
w: \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ *
w: R2 R2 R2 R6 R2 R2 R2 R6 R6 R2 R7 R7 R7 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-
a4 d2 e2 | "D" f3 f f2 f2 | "D7" f3 f f2 e2 | "G" d3 e d2 B2 |
w: \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_
w: R7 R2 R2 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R6 R2 R2 R2 R2 R1 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
d2 d2 d2 e2 | "D" f6 f2 | "A" e3 e f2 e2 | "D" d8 |]
w: \_\_ \_\_ \_\_ * \_\_ \_\_ * * \_\_ * \_\_
w: R2 R2 R2 R2 R6 R6 R2 R2 R6 R2 R2 GC
w:ys mais je pré-fère les Î-les Sous le Vent.
w:from, but I pre-fer the Lee- __ ward Isles.

 

Je Voyage Tout Partout.pdf

Edited November 11, 2021 by lachenal74693

[Owen Anderson]

14 minutes ago, lachenal74693 said:

[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

 

I think a "bellows spacing" optimizer could be an interesting programming exercise. With a few constraints imposed (no runs beyond a certain number of beats, not switches under a certain length), I think one could generate a list of viable tab candidates.

Edited November 11, 2021 by resistor

[John Wild]

If you are using EasyABC, there is a transpose function in the edit menu.

[Owen Anderson]

2 hours ago, David Barnert said:

Not clear what you mean by this question. In abc notation, there are 2 ways to indicate an F#: in the key signature (for instance, K:D) and at the individual note: ^F (the “^” takes the place of a “#” sign). If that doesn’t answer your question, you’ll have to make the question clearer.

 

I guess I just find this aspect of ABC notation confusing to read/write. I would expect notes to either be denoted by their position on the staff (which is then modified by the key to get an "absolute" note), or be denoted by the absolute note (as in an F# should always be denoted as ^F).

 

The way it works, I have to remember which key it's in, and which notes I have to implicitly rewrite in my head based on that. I guess this process is perhaps straightforward to folks with more in-grained music theory training than myself, but it trips me up.

[Owen Anderson]

7 minutes ago, lachenal74693 said:

Here's a quick stab at doing this - ABC and PDF:

 

 

What does the "GC" in your tablature represent?

[Roger Hare]

4 minutes ago, resistor said:

 

I think a "bellows spacing" optimizer could be an interesting programming exercise. With a few constraints imposed (no runs beyond a certain number of beats, not switches under a certain length), I think one could generate a list of viable tabs.

Agreed. However, I think with the 'look-forward' and 'look-back' functionality which would be needed, and also taking into account the fairly loose 'rules' governing staff notation, it might be a bit too hard (for me, at least). I keep frightening myself by thinking 'neural network learning program'. I currently have 3 'hard-wired' note-button mappings incorporated into the main program and am thinking of adding a 4th...

[Roger Hare]

6 hours ago, resistor said:

What does the "GC" in your tablature represent?

This is a 'tag' added to the end of the w: line, after all the tabs. It doesn't appear in the score because ABC only processes as many 'words' in the w: line as there are notes in the 'music' line.

 

In this case, it stands for "Gary Coover" This is so that when/if I extract the tune from the original multi-tune file, and place it in another multi-tune file, I can tell instantly (when looking at the ABC) that that particular tune is tabbed using GC's system. 

 

The equivalent lines in my other two tabbing programs are tagged with:

 

"ABT" - Australian Bush Traditions system

"RJH" - my own slight modification of the ABT system - I was immodest enough to name it after myself...😎

 

This isn't as daft as it sounds - for a C/G concertina, the button numbering for the right-hand C and accidental rows is the same for all three systems, so it avoids any confusion with simple tunes which only use the right-hand C- and accidental- rows.

 

Later edit: I should perhaps add that co-incidentally, you caught me in the middle of modifying these 'tags' to encode more information - so: "GC" will become "GCCGX" which means "Gary Coover Button numbering; C/G concertina; X-row note/button mapping (X-row = Cross-row). This is what we used to call 'syntactic sugar' or 'creeping featurism' when I worked in the computing racket, but it does serve some purpose (I hope...)...

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by lachenal74693

[David Barnert]

Now that the abc is getting squared away and you’re finding your way around the concertina, let’s have a look at those chords...

 

There are no immutable rules, and there are many right ways to harmonize any given tune, but I see several better choices than the ones you’ve made. Allow me to make some suggestions.

 

[ I’m numbering the measures as they are numbered in Roger’s PDF, rather than the usual convention of starting with measure 1 after the initial measure fragment: ]

 

In measures 5 and 13, I would suggest switching back to D rather than holding the G.

 

In measure 8, I would suggest an E minor, or E minor 7th or even E major, depending on how much of a statement you want to make and how many accidentals you have access to. The next measure (measure 9) gets the A chord. That way you get to take advantage of the circle of 5ths (B->E->A->D), making for a strong and convincing chord progression.

 

I like the D7 in measure 11, but my inclination would be to make it a bit of a surprise by not doing the same thing in measure 3 (just a regular D chord).

 

The last measure could be made a little less static by preceding the D chord with a G chord. The last note should really be a measure and a half long (so you could repeat back to the beginning without losing a beat). So I’m suggesting a G chord on what you have as the last measure and a D chord on the half-measure continuation of the last note that we’re tacking on the end:

 

| "G" d4- | "D" d2 |]

 

Also, this tune isn’t really in 4/4, it’s in 2/2 (like 2/4 but with the notes written as if they are twice as long, but only two beats per measure). In abc you could write it as M:2/2 or M:C|

 

As I said earlier, I’m not an anglo player, so if any of this doesn’t work on your instrument I apologize.

[Roger Hare]

3 hours ago, David Barnert said:

...[ I’m numbering the measures as they are numbered in Roger’s PDF, rather than the usual convention of starting with measure 1 after the initial measure fragment: ]...

Yeah! Because of my fairly flaky knowledge of musical theory, (particularly that part relating to 'staff notation'), I'm never entirely sure that this bar/measure numbering is correct. My excuse is that this is what's generated by EasyABC in response to the %%measurenb 0 instruction...

[Owen Anderson]

Thank you for the accompaniment suggestions. I think that the resulting ABC ends up looking like this (stripped of concertina tab for the moment)?

 

 

X:1
T:Je Voyage Tout Partout
L:1/2
M:C|
K:D
Q:1/2=100
V:1 treble  
V:1
"D" D E | F>F | F F | F>F | F E | "G" D>E | D B, |
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-
"D" D2 | D E | F2- | F D | "Bm" D>E | F F | "Em" E>A | A B |
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- 
"A" A2 | D E | "D" F>F | F F | "D7" F>F | F E | "G" D>E | D B, |
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 |  D  E | F2- | F F | "A" E>E | F E | "G" D2- | "D" D|]
w: ys mais je pré-fère_ les Î-les Sous le Vent_
w: from, but I pre-fer_ the Lee- __ ward Isles_
 

 

voyage.pdf

[David Barnert]

12 hours ago, resistor said:

Thank you for the accompaniment suggestions. I think that the resulting ABC ends up looking like this (stripped of concertina tab for the moment)?

Not quite. I have made these changes:

• L:1/4 (and L: should come after M:)
• Removed every 2nd bar line
• Lengthened two notes that were tied across bar lines that I removed (changing F2- | F -> F3)
• Doubled the length of the last note

I’ve screwed up the underlay of the text (I almost never deal with text in abc) and I leave that to you to disentangle.

 

Listen to your software play this. I think you’ll agree that the timing makes more sense.

 

X:1
T:Je Voyage Tout Partout
M:C|
L:1/4
K:D
Q:1/2=100
V:1 treble  
V:1
"D" D E | F>F F F | F>F F E | "G" D>E D B, |
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-
"D" D2 D E | F3 D | "Bm" D>E F F | "Em" E>A A B |
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- 
"A" A2 D E | "D" F>F F F | "D7" F>F F E | "G" D>E D B, |
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 D  E | F3 F | "A" E>E F E | "G" D4- | "D" D2|]
w: ys mais je pré-fère_ les Î-les Sous le Vent_
w: from, but I pre-fer_ the Lee- __ ward Isles_

 

[Owen Anderson]

2 hours ago, David Barnert said:

Not quite. I have made these changes:

• L:1/4 (and L: should come after M:)
• Removed every 2nd bar line
• Lengthened two notes that were tied across bar lines that I removed (changing F2- | F -> F3)
• Doubled the length of the last note

 

 

Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't every measure be two half-notes in 2/2 time? I added the extra bar lines and split made the ties based on my understanding of that.

Edited November 12, 2021 by resistor