New stand-alone utility for adding C/G Anglo Concertina fingerings to ABC tunes

[Michael Eskin]

I’ve put together a utility for adding fingerings for either Jeffries or Wheatstone style C/G instruments to existing ABC files.

The tool can handle ABC files with one or many tunes.

Once added the modified ABC can be copied to the clipboard, saved to a file, or sent directly my ABC Transcription Tools for further editing.

The fingering solution algorithm is based on the original work by Jim Van Donsel.

The tool is available at:

http://michaeleskin.com/tools/anglo-fingerings.html

and the source code is available on GitHub at:

https://github.com/seisiuneer/abctools/tree/main/tools

Demo video:

https://youtu.be/OOXPKw9v2S8

[Michael Eskin]

I've added additional options for fingering solutions:
 

On-Row:

Jim Van Donsel's original fingering solution, favors center row.

Favors playing the second octave D and E on the right side center row.

Cross-Row:

A more cross-row friendly fingering solution:

Favors playing the second octave D and E on the left side bottom row.

For Jeffries-style instruments, you can now select your preferred button for C# and D#.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

Leveraging the work I did on the Anglo Concertina utility, I just released something something very similar for the Traditional Irish B/C and C#/D button accordion players and teachers who want button tablature in their ABC files:

http://michaeleskin.com/tools/box-tab.html


Demo video:

https://youtu.be/_BAXNI4G7xg
 

[Michael Eskin]

I've integrated the injection of tablature for B/C box, C#/D box, and Anglo Concertina directly into the ABC Transcription Tools.

You no longer need to use the standalone tab injector tools.

Full detail are available here in the User's Guide:

http://michaeleskin.com/abctools/userguide.html#injecting_box_or_anglo_concertina_tablature

Demo video:
 

 

[Michael Eskin]

Hands-on demo showing how to use the new Anglo Concertina tablature in the tools to practice tunes slowed down.

Demo video:

https://youtu.be/k_FsBlqMuAw

 

The tools are available here:

 

http://michaeleskin.com/abc

 

and the complete detailed user guide is here:

 

http://michaeleskin.com/abctools/userguide.html

 

with the specific section on Anglo Concertina tab injection at:

 

http://michaeleskin.com/abctools/userguide.html#injecting_box_or_anglo_concertina_tablature

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

I've upgraded the Anglo Concertina tablature generator as well as the implementation in the ABC Transcription Tools with a new cross-fingering solution algorithm that is now the same for both Jeffries and Wheatstone-style instruments. It very closely matches how I'd play the tunes myself:
 

On-Row:
 

Jim Van Donsel's original fingering solution, favors C-row.

Favors playing D5 and E5 on the right-side C-row.

Jeffries-style favors 2nd button on right-side top-row for C#5 and D#5.

Cross-Row:

Favors playing D5 and E5 on the left-side G-row.

Favors playing C5 on the left-side G-row draw.

Favors playing B4 on the right-side C-row draw.

For Jeffries:

Favors 2nd button on right-side top-row for C#5 and D#5.

Edited July 23, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

The Anglo Concertina tablature generator now has the option to keep existing chords in the ABC when generating tab underneath the notation.

[Roger Hare]

I finally got around to trying out the Anglo fingering generator properly.

 

Disclaimer: I usually use a different tab style and button numbering in my own programs (but I don't think that's relevant in what follows):

 

Using the 'Ebb Tide' example, I found that:

 

Once I had generated the fingering (Wheatstone, cross-row) when I followed the 'Copy to clipboard' and 'Save to file' route described in the documentation, the ABC in the resultant file was corrupted. The up- and down-arrows were replaced with what appear in the on-screen score as a-grave characters. This is illustrated (I hope) below:

 

I just don't have a clue about why this is happening. I'm more than happy to be told that I'm doing something extremely silly...I've included the relevant ABC as an attached file.

 

ebbtide.abc

Edited August 7, 2023 by lachenal74693

[Michael Eskin]

Yes, all the limitations (no support for chords, no multi-voice tunes, etc.) you found are real and documented in my tool's user guide. 

 

As far as your copy and paste and/or ABC save issue, again, I think something in your workflow, either browser or text editor can't handle UTF-8 encoded text, as we've discussed here for a similar issue you were having with Ghostscript and UTF-8 characters.  
 

If I tell my text editors (tried three different tools) to display the ABC files with the arrows, including the "Ebb Tide" example, as ASCII encoded instead of UTF-8 encoded, I get the same result as you.  
 

I suggest figuring out how to configure your text editor to use UTF-8 encoded text, or if it can't, replace it with a modern text editor that can.
 

I'm happily copying and pasting the tablature with no issues with the arrows.  What exactly is your workflow? What OS is your computer, which browser, which text editor.  
 

Nobody else, at least so far, is reporting issues with the display or saving of the tablature arrows. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

Here are the sections of both the standalone tab generator utility page and the ABC tool user guide that describe the limitations of the tablature generator:

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

I also very clearly credit Jim van Donsel for his original work in both the utility and my tool's "Credits and thanks" page:

 

http://michaeleskin.com/abctools/credits.html

 

I asked for and received permission from Jim to fork his original code for my use. 

I both expanded on his implementation to come up with cross-row solutions matching my own fingering preferences as well as found and fixed several issues in the original implementation.

 

As my focus is primarily on traditional Irish music, I have no plans to add additional tunings, i.e. Bb/F, G/D, etc. to the tool.  Nor do I plan to spend anytime trying to get it to work with multi-voice tunes, chords, etc. 

For what I use it for, and it's intended audience, it currently fulfills the needs of the vast majority of users.   That I've been able to run literally thousands of traditional Irish tunes through it and produce consistent, usable results for both Jeffries and Wheatstone layouts in both on-row and cross-row fingerings is enough for me.

Of course, the source code for all of my ABC tools are available for anyone to download for free and modify to do whatever you require:

https://github.com/seisiuneer/abctools
 

And specifically relevant to this discussion, the standalone tablature generator tool sources, including my Anglo Concertina tablature generator tool are in the following subdirectory of the main project:

https://github.com/seisiuneer/abctools/tree/main/tools
 

I've integrated the functionality of the standalone tools into my ABC Transcription Tools, but continue to support the standalone tools.

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

Interesting, the Mac version of EasyABC has no issues with the arrow glyphs.

I ran my ABC tool, added a reel from the "Add" dialog. Injected Anglo Concertina tablature from the "Advanced Controls" dialog, clicked "Copy All" and just pasted it into EasyABC. 

Verified this both using Firefox and Chrome.

I can't comment on the Windows version of ABC, if they don't support UTF-8, I can't fix the issue.

If someone absolutely has to use a non-UTF-8 ABC tool, then you can do the following:

To replace the arrow glyphs with some other character (Jim originally used "P" and "D" for push and draw) grab the utility source code from the GitHub repo and just change the arrows in the source to whatever you want.

Starting at line 1220 in anglo-fingerings.js:
 

// MAE 14 July 2023 Using glyphs instead
// var PUSH_NAME = "P";
// var DRAW_NAME = "D";

var PUSH_NAME = "↓";
var DRAW_NAME = "↑";

function generateFingerings() {

Save and run the utility by running anglo-fingerings.html

Heck, I tell you what, to make it even easier I'll add an option to replace the injected bellows direction arrows with whatever you like right in the standalone tool (but not my ABC Tools).

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

OK, here you go, you can now change what glyphs/text gets injected for the bellows direction.

Don't like the arrows, change them to P and D or Push and Draw or whatever you want.

Now live at:

http://michaeleskin.com/tools/anglo-fingerings.html

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

Here's an example using the new feature where I've substituted "Push" and "Draw" for the arrows and did a "Test Output in the ABC Transcription Tools":

Party on! 

Again, this addition is limited to the standalone Anglo Concertina tab injector tool for now. 

If you do this sort of thing from my ABC Tools, just save out the ABC file and do a global search and replace for the arrows and replace them for whatever you want.  If I integrate this into the ABC Tools in the future, I'll let you know here. So far nobody is asking outside of this thread on this forum.

Edited August 7, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

I've added the ability to set the Push and Draw symbols for both Box and Anglo Concertina tablature now in the core ABC Tools: