I could have sworn that someone here said at some point that ABC was much older than the software that we use with it today. I thought saomeone said folk music in Ireland had been hand written this way, when it was written, for generations.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a sheet of paper where an Irish whistler had jotted down tunes for a friend of mine. It was kind of an abc, with letters and additional signs instead of musical notation, but it was in no way "abc-notation". It had no numbers, and bar lines signified groups of notes (i.e. 3 notes in jigs and 4 in reels) rather than actual bars. Could it be that the hand written stuff was like this, just an easier way of writing tunes, rather than a single universal code? This would explain both the 1980s and the been long aroung.
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Used by, one or many, Padraig O'Keeffe...
A related version, solfeggio, was also in use...
Examples of it exist in "The National Library of Ireland", Dublin, and in the Folklore Archives, also Dublin, and were also in the possession of, among others, Breandan Breathnach. Used by me since the 60s... NO ~ Walshaw will tell you himself, he didn't invent it, he adapted it, and then a slew of people worked on standardizing it, like with HTML...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
"Wikipedia is known for inaccuracies"
Not as far as I know
But if you do find something that proves that ABCs have been around longer than that, why don't you wright it up in the wikepdia article, that is the whole point after all.
Arlo
It depends whether you're referring to ABC notation per se - a formalised, computer-readable notation system - or just notating tunes using letters. The latter has surely been inuse ever since notes were given letter-names (I've just done a quick search but have failed to ascertain when this happened).
ABC notation itself, as developed by Chris Walshaw in the 1980s, is really partly modelled on staff notation, since every symbol found on the stave has an analogue in ABC - it is, in a sense, an encoded form of staff notation that happens to be readable by eye as well as by computer software. No doubt, many other people have devised similar systems, for personal use or otherwise, but Chris W. happened to be the first to make it public.
"...ever since notes were given letter-names (I've just done a quick search but have failed to ascertain when this happened)..."
...but notes certainly had letter names by C17th.
It surely stands to reason that anyone who knows staff notation but doesn't have manuscript paper, and is too lazy to draw out a stave, would use letters and any other symbols necessary to capture the basics of a tune - whether in 1680 or 1980. Staff notation is easy to read but labour intensive to write if you don't have the lines ready ruled out. The use of capitals vs. lower case, 'commas' and 'apostrophes' for differentiating octaves has been in use for a long time, I think.
Walshaw's ABC merely uses symbols that are easily accessible from a standard computer keyboard to represent symbols on the stave - e.g. _ = flat, z = rest, / = half note length, etc.
Back from a little sleep and no longer under the influence of cider... Nice one granama. I half remember chatting with Mr. Walshaw about this before, and he based it on the shorthand he'd also picked up, or as we know it and have known it ~ ABC notation... So his use of it predates his adapting ti to the computer. He, again as I remember, and it has been awhile, is not so full of it to claim full ownership or invention, but bless him for hauling it into the digital age so we can use it here as well to convert it to dots and midi through various additional programs, and this site and Concertina-Dot-Net being two examples.
On a few variations I've known, some folks didn't bother with bar lines and just grouped notes as you'd expect, for example in pairs for the likes of a polka and in 4s for the likes of reels and hornpipes. I was one of those that tended to include bar lines. For triplets you had a couple of options, the one I was most familiar with was the arch over the three lettes with a '3' between it and the group of 3, or as is now standard with its use digitally ~ (3ABc... Notes, as said, tended to always be grouped into the usual beats of the given meter. Length was shown by some with an underline, or two underlines, etc. The standard now is based on numeration, or A2, A3, A4. The forward slash for halving a note was pretty much in wide use, but I never used /2 or /4, tending to write it / & //... Again, I'm speaking about it as I'd learne it in the 60s. I have, however, seen it in various places at least dating back to before the 1st World War... But I've seen some great examples of personal notation over time, some wild stuff, some inspired stuff once you understand it....
ABC notation is wonderful. You can have very little, and that includes sense if you're several pints into it, and you can write down a measure or two of a tune you've heard and with luck that's all you'll need to remember the rest when you get home, or when you sober up. Yes, I know, it doesn't always work, and I'd recomment not using a water soluble ink, especially in these isles... It is a form of notation well worth learning, as an aid. I used to be in the regular habit of taking beer coasters worth of tunes home with me to learn. I always hated it when the companies did them in black... Sometimes there'd be just enough of a Guiness head showing, the cream, to manage a couple of tunes if you had the dexterity to write small and clearly...
Also, some folks started the CAPS at D, the note below the staff, and so ~
D E F G A B C d e f g a b c
The comma that lowers a note an octave, in some versions, instead of comming after the lowered note, or B, ~ was made just below it ~ and that also could happen with the higher octave notes, instead of b' the mark happened directly over the note being raised an octave... So, with much of the old way, not a lot has changed with the basics of the digital version...
""Wikipedia is known for inaccuracies"
Not as far as I know"
no, really, it is. It depends on the subject, of course, but just because it is in Wikipedia, doesn't necessarily make it so
but what I wanted to throw in was that I believe the letter names for the notes may have originated around the 8th or 9th centuries in the Church. I believe that was around the time that they began notating the liturgical music on a five line staff.
I could easily be wrong as I didn't look it up, I just remember the musicology courses I took at the university all those years ago.
I don't believe they had sharps of flats back then, and they weren't using keys as we know them today, it was still the old church modes, but I believe that around that time is when they first came up with the musical alphabet and started writing things down in the monestaries.
Good on yuh Nate, sadly I am without my main body of books and resources here or I'd be able to offer something more than just my personal relationship with ABC notation as it has become... I have some recollection as well of lettered notation from way back when, and the use of 'H' too, which also, I believe, goes back quite a ways...
Smewhere between the Clare method (because I 1st saw that during Willie Week) & Chris Walshaw's;
"The Plaine and Easie Code
(adapted for the NLS Scottish Song Index)
The Plaine and Easie Code is a notation code representing music notation using typewriter characters. It has been used since the 1960s by musicians, musicologists and music librarians to communicate music notation without having to draw the notation graphics while typing text on the typewriter or computer."
I seem to remember from my music history lectures that the 'flat' symbol dates back to the early days of polyphony (10th-11th centuries) and was used specifically as an instruction to flatten the B (where F was the 'final' note) when singing in parallel organum (parallel 5ths), so as to prevent a diminished 5th ('Diabolus in Musicum') ocurring between the two voices at the 4th degree of their respective modes. Hence, the symbol came to resemble a lower-case 'b'. So the letter names must already have existed back then.
Nate Ryan: "I believe the letter names for the notes may have originated around the 8th or 9th centuries in the Church. I believe that was around the time that they began notating the liturgical music on a five line staff."
According (for what it's worth) to Wikipedia, Guido d'Arezzo, the man credited with inventing 5-line staff notation, lived in the early 11th Century. But otherwise, what you write ties in with what I have written above.
that's some true irony there citing Wikipedia after what i just said about it,
but that could well be. I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines and they might not have even represented the same notes and there may not even have been a standard between one monastic order and another
I mean it was pretty hard to exchange ideas in the Dark Ages and all.
What you say of the accidentals in early polyphony sounds pretty spot on to me, too. I know that it first came about from avoiding the "Devil's Interval" from F to B
I always thought all this was fascinating stuff, though, the history of notation and tuning systems
It always amazed me that the Greeks knew about the Pythagorian Comma. Well, rather that they knew the accoustic phenomenon existed anyway.
I guess since its named after one of their guys its sort of like being surprised to find that General Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb, but you get the idea.
To put some more info to granama's post:
Diabolus in musica (sorry, can't help being pedantic, but musica is feminine, and it's ablativ is musica)
Concerning the bs:
For anyone who noticed, the two bs are the reason why B is called H in German, one of the bs slowly assimilated to h and the other remained, Bb is still called simply b in German, despite b being a sign for "flattened" in staff notation.
Nate Ryan: "I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines"
Yes - there certainly were notation systems in use in the Church before Guido d'Arezzo. The earliest, I think, was the *Neumatic* system, which consisted of symbols drawn about a single, horizontal line. The line represented the home note of the mode (although not representing any fixed pitch), whilst each symbol ('neume') represented a particular short sequence of notes. A similar kind of notation exists today in Judaism for the cantillation of the liturgical texts (although the symbols are found directly above and below the text, not about a line).
I think a 4-line staff notation system also existed before Guido d'Arezzo.
TMB: "Diabolus in musica (sorry, can't help being pedantic, but musica is feminine, and it's ablativ is musica)".
My abject apologies to Music for calling her an 'it'. And may I feebly retort your pedantry by pointing out that, in English, 'ablative' has an 'e' on the end? (Although, since we are discussing a language other than that in which we are communicating, it is hardly of consequence whether we use the English or the German spelling).
"I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines"
History of ABC
History of ABC
I could have sworn that someone here said at some point that ABC was much older than the software that we use with it today. I thought saomeone said folk music in Ireland had been hand written this way, when it was written, for generations.
Then I saw this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abc_notation
Under the HISTORY section it says it's only been around since the 1980's.
Wikipedia is known for inaccuracies. So what's the truth here. How long has ABC been around?
# Posted on July 8th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: History of ABC
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a sheet of paper where an Irish whistler had jotted down tunes for a friend of mine. It was kind of an abc, with letters and additional signs instead of musical notation, but it was in no way "abc-notation". It had no numbers, and bar lines signified groups of notes (i.e. 3 notes in jigs and 4 in reels) rather than actual bars. Could it be that the hand written stuff was like this, just an easier way of writing tunes, rather than a single universal code? This would explain both the 1980s and the been long aroung.
# Posted on July 8th 2008 by TMB
Re: History of ABC
I was under the impression that formal ABC was invented by this guy: http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/
But it's an idea that has been around a lot longer in an informal way.
# Posted on July 8th 2008 by Reverend
Re: History of ABC
And his version of the history: http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/history.html
# Posted on July 8th 2008 by Reverend
Re: History of ABC
No clue about ABC, but you're right unique forms of notation have been around a long time.
Matt Cranitch gives good interview here about Padraig O'Keeffe's truly individualized notation:
http://thebookimnotreading.blogspot.com/2007/02/article-about-padraig-okeeffe-in-irish.html
Matt Molloy describes his personal notation here, made it up himself, like Master Padraig made his:
http://www.firescribble.net/flute/molloy.html
# Posted on July 8th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: History of ABC
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Used by, one or many, Padraig O'Keeffe...
A related version, solfeggio, was also in use...
Examples of it exist in "The National Library of Ireland", Dublin, and in the Folklore Archives, also Dublin, and were also in the possession of, among others, Breandan Breathnach. Used by me since the 60s... NO ~ Walshaw will tell you himself, he didn't invent it, he adapted it, and then a slew of people worked on standardizing it, like with HTML...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
Pre 20th Century, but then I'm repeating myself...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
or ~ of ~ one of many... It got around and some folks had their own way with it...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Sorry, I'm dead tired and cider pickled at this moment...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
There's very little difference between how I learned and used it, 60s, and how it is used now...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: History of ABC
"Wikipedia is known for inaccuracies"
Not as far as I know
But if you do find something that proves that ABCs have been around longer than that, why don't you wright it up in the wikepdia article, that is the whole point after all.
Arlo
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Fellenbaum
Re: History of ABC
It depends whether you're referring to ABC notation per se - a formalised, computer-readable notation system - or just notating tunes using letters. The latter has surely been inuse ever since notes were given letter-names (I've just done a quick search but have failed to ascertain when this happened).
ABC notation itself, as developed by Chris Walshaw in the 1980s, is really partly modelled on staff notation, since every symbol found on the stave has an analogue in ABC - it is, in a sense, an encoded form of staff notation that happens to be readable by eye as well as by computer software. No doubt, many other people have devised similar systems, for personal use or otherwise, but Chris W. happened to be the first to make it public.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
"...ever since notes were given letter-names (I've just done a quick search but have failed to ascertain when this happened)..."
...but notes certainly had letter names by C17th.
It surely stands to reason that anyone who knows staff notation but doesn't have manuscript paper, and is too lazy to draw out a stave, would use letters and any other symbols necessary to capture the basics of a tune - whether in 1680 or 1980. Staff notation is easy to read but labour intensive to write if you don't have the lines ready ruled out. The use of capitals vs. lower case, 'commas' and 'apostrophes' for differentiating octaves has been in use for a long time, I think.
Walshaw's ABC merely uses symbols that are easily accessible from a standard computer keyboard to represent symbols on the stave - e.g. _ = flat, z = rest, / = half note length, etc.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
Back from a little sleep and no longer under the influence of cider... Nice one granama. I half remember chatting with Mr. Walshaw about this before, and he based it on the shorthand he'd also picked up, or as we know it and have known it ~ ABC notation... So his use of it predates his adapting ti to the computer. He, again as I remember, and it has been awhile, is not so full of it to claim full ownership or invention, but bless him for hauling it into the digital age so we can use it here as well to convert it to dots and midi through various additional programs, and this site and Concertina-Dot-Net being two examples.
On a few variations I've known, some folks didn't bother with bar lines and just grouped notes as you'd expect, for example in pairs for the likes of a polka and in 4s for the likes of reels and hornpipes. I was one of those that tended to include bar lines. For triplets you had a couple of options, the one I was most familiar with was the arch over the three lettes with a '3' between it and the group of 3, or as is now standard with its use digitally ~ (3ABc... Notes, as said, tended to always be grouped into the usual beats of the given meter. Length was shown by some with an underline, or two underlines, etc. The standard now is based on numeration, or A2, A3, A4. The forward slash for halving a note was pretty much in wide use, but I never used /2 or /4, tending to write it / & //... Again, I'm speaking about it as I'd learne it in the 60s. I have, however, seen it in various places at least dating back to before the 1st World War... But I've seen some great examples of personal notation over time, some wild stuff, some inspired stuff once you understand it....
ABC notation is wonderful. You can have very little, and that includes sense if you're several pints into it, and you can write down a measure or two of a tune you've heard and with luck that's all you'll need to remember the rest when you get home, or when you sober up. Yes, I know, it doesn't always work, and I'd recomment not using a water soluble ink, especially in these isles... It is a form of notation well worth learning, as an aid. I used to be in the regular habit of taking beer coasters worth of tunes home with me to learn. I always hated it when the companies did them in black... Sometimes there'd be just enough of a Guiness head showing, the cream, to manage a couple of tunes if you had the dexterity to write small and clearly...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Oh yes, I'd learned hash for sharp, or #...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: History of ABC
Also, some folks started the CAPS at D, the note below the staff, and so ~
D E F G A B C d e f g a b c
The comma that lowers a note an octave, in some versions, instead of comming after the lowered note, or B, ~ was made just below it ~ and that also could happen with the higher octave notes, instead of b' the mark happened directly over the note being raised an octave... So, with much of the old way, not a lot has changed with the basics of the digital version...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: History of ABC
""Wikipedia is known for inaccuracies"
Not as far as I know"
no, really, it is. It depends on the subject, of course, but just because it is in Wikipedia, doesn't necessarily make it so
but what I wanted to throw in was that I believe the letter names for the notes may have originated around the 8th or 9th centuries in the Church. I believe that was around the time that they began notating the liturgical music on a five line staff.
I could easily be wrong as I didn't look it up, I just remember the musicology courses I took at the university all those years ago.
I don't believe they had sharps of flats back then, and they weren't using keys as we know them today, it was still the old church modes, but I believe that around that time is when they first came up with the musical alphabet and started writing things down in the monestaries.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: History of ABC
Good on yuh Nate, sadly I am without my main body of books and resources here or I'd be able to offer something more than just my personal relationship with ABC notation as it has become... I have some recollection as well of lettered notation from way back when, and the use of 'H' too, which also, I believe, goes back quite a ways...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
History of ABC ~
Smewhere between the Clare method (because I 1st saw that during Willie Week) & Chris Walshaw's;
"The Plaine and Easie Code
(adapted for the NLS Scottish Song Index)
The Plaine and Easie Code is a notation code representing music notation using typewriter characters. It has been used since the 1960s by musicians, musicologists and music librarians to communicate music notation without having to draw the notation graphics while typing text on the typewriter or computer."
http://www.nls.uk/collections/music/songindex/list.cfm?letter=H#
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: History of ABC
I seem to remember from my music history lectures that the 'flat' symbol dates back to the early days of polyphony (10th-11th centuries) and was used specifically as an instruction to flatten the B (where F was the 'final' note) when singing in parallel organum (parallel 5ths), so as to prevent a diminished 5th ('Diabolus in Musicum') ocurring between the two voices at the 4th degree of their respective modes. Hence, the symbol came to resemble a lower-case 'b'. So the letter names must already have existed back then.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
Nate Ryan: "I believe the letter names for the notes may have originated around the 8th or 9th centuries in the Church. I believe that was around the time that they began notating the liturgical music on a five line staff."
According (for what it's worth) to Wikipedia, Guido d'Arezzo, the man credited with inventing 5-line staff notation, lived in the early 11th Century. But otherwise, what you write ties in with what I have written above.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
& with my dyslexic brain only being able to raise "very, very old!" I just wasn't willing to commit it to print...
I miss my books...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: History of ABC
granama,
that's some true irony there citing Wikipedia after what i just said about it,
but that could well be. I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines and they might not have even represented the same notes and there may not even have been a standard between one monastic order and another
I mean it was pretty hard to exchange ideas in the Dark Ages and all.
What you say of the accidentals in early polyphony sounds pretty spot on to me, too. I know that it first came about from avoiding the "Devil's Interval" from F to B
I always thought all this was fascinating stuff, though, the history of notation and tuning systems
It always amazed me that the Greeks knew about the Pythagorian Comma. Well, rather that they knew the accoustic phenomenon existed anyway.
I guess since its named after one of their guys its sort of like being surprised to find that General Grant is buried in Grant's Tomb, but you get the idea.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: History of ABC
To put some more info to granama's post:
Diabolus in musica (sorry, can't help being pedantic, but musica is feminine, and it's ablativ is musica)
Concerning the bs:
For anyone who noticed, the two bs are the reason why B is called H in German, one of the bs slowly assimilated to h and the other remained, Bb is still called simply b in German, despite b being a sign for "flattened" in staff notation.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by TMB
Re: History of ABC
That should read "its ablative case", to be pedantic with myself too.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by TMB
Re: History of ABC
Oh, I get it now, the B is pluralized
at first I read "concerning the bs" as something totally different
sort of as an acronym I guess
didn't know that about the H. Good stuff there.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: History of ABC
Nate Ryan: "I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines"
Yes - there certainly were notation systems in use in the Church before Guido d'Arezzo. The earliest, I think, was the *Neumatic* system, which consisted of symbols drawn about a single, horizontal line. The line represented the home note of the mode (although not representing any fixed pitch), whilst each symbol ('neume') represented a particular short sequence of notes. A similar kind of notation exists today in Judaism for the cantillation of the liturgical texts (although the symbols are found directly above and below the text, not about a line).
I think a 4-line staff notation system also existed before Guido d'Arezzo.
TMB: "Diabolus in musica (sorry, can't help being pedantic, but musica is feminine, and it's ablativ is musica)".
My abject apologies to Music for calling her an 'it'. And may I feebly retort your pedantry by pointing out that, in English, 'ablative' has an 'e' on the end? (Although, since we are discussing a language other than that in which we are communicating, it is hardly of consequence whether we use the English or the German spelling).
"I do know that there are old manuscripts of monk's chant's that predate polyphony, but they may or may not have had a standard like the 5 line staff. It could have been some other number of lines"
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
"That should read "its ablative case", to be pedantic with myself too."
Sorry, TMB - I missed that.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by ragaman
Re: History of ABC
...and that last quote at the end of my post shouldn't be there.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by ragaman