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Newbie question

Newbie question

Apologies in advance.....

Being new to all this whistling stuff, I have a fingering chart as I am learning the required finger positions for different notes in different octaves.
The tunes section of this site details the Silver Spear as shown below. My questions are:
1. What do the pipes (i.e | ) mean?
2. What do the tildas (i.e. ~ ) mean?
3. What are the brackets for?
4. Why are some letters uppercase and others lower?

X: 1
T: Silver Spear, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
A|:FA (3AAA BAFA|dfed BddA|FA (3AAA BAFA|dfed (3BdB AG|
|FA (3AAA BAFA|dfed Bdef|gage fgfe|1 dfed (3BdB AG:|2 dfed BdAd||
|:fa (3aaa bfaf|gfed Bdde|fa (3aaa bfaf|gfed (3BdB A2|
|fa (3aaa bfaf|gfed Bdef|~g3 e ~f3 e|1 dfed BdAd:|2 dfed B2 AG||

Many thanks and sorry if I'm being a pain. If anyone has a link explaining all of the above I am happy to do the reading myself to save you the typing time.

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by waraf

Re: Newbie question

Here's the ABC home page with all the info you might need.

http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by fidkid

Re: Newbie question

Thanks fidkid. Much appreciated.

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by waraf

Re: Newbie question

But to answer your questions directly,
1. the "pipes" mark the beginning and end of a measure
2. tildas indicate an ornament, usually a roll
3. brackets -- do you mean [ ] or " " ? (In the US we usually refer to the second as "quotation marks" and since there's no info in your bio I'm not sure where you're coming from). Anyway, both are ways of showing chords. [C,EGc e] and "C" will both give you a C major chord.
4. Cases help indicate octave. Uppercase with a comma are lowest, uppercase are one octave higher, lower case is one octave even higher, and then lower case with an single quote/apostrophe is even higher, ie. C,-C-c-c'

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by fidkid

Re: Newbie question

To answer question number 3, did you mean the (3AAA for example? The bracket and 3 used there represents a triplet.

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by creathana

Re: Newbie question

That's great thanks again fidkid. It actually seems like a pretty simple system (now that you've explained it ;-))so I think I should be up to speed pretty quickly, with the main components of it at least.
By the way I'm from Dublin so ( ) are what I'm referring to when I say brackets.
Cheers

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by waraf

Re: Newbie question

Yes Creathana that's exactly what I was referring to. Thanks

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by waraf

Re: Newbie question

Steve Mansfield's ABC tutorial ~ the usual recommendation
http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_notation.htm

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by ceolachan

http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_index.htm

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by ceolachan

Re: Newbie question

Why don't get someone to play the tune, or a recording, and see if you can match the notes you hear to the letters and punctuation? That would be the best way of finding out what the symbols mean.

# Posted on June 26th 2008 by llig leahcim

Re: Newbie question

I could do that Llig but I find it easier and quicker to spend a few mins learning the meaning of the notation from something like an online tutorial and then deciphering the music from there. Just a personal preference I suppose.
Anyway, thanks for your input everyone.

# Posted on June 27th 2008 by waraf

Re: Newbie question

Not in a million years will you get anywhere near deciphering the music from an on-line tutorial.

# Posted on June 27th 2008 by llig leahcim

Re: Newbie question

No I didn't mean I could decipher the music purely from the ABC notation tutorial llig. I don't mean to offend, but there's no set rules for how each of us learn stuff so I'll just do what works for me and we'll leave it at that. I appreciate your input all the same.

# Posted on June 30th 2008 by waraf

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