Are there many people writing their own compositions. I have looked through the session and I've not managed to find any yet. Probably not looked hard enough. I have written about 45 myself and plan to submit some of them but I'm not too good at the ABC format. Once I get my head round it, I'll stick on a couple of my tunes and hope they don't get crucified. Dexy
There's a bunch of them. Problem is, since this is a site for traditional music, there's no place in the ABC for the composer. So, they all immediatelly become trad! Even i have one, called "Boil the Coffee Early".
Maybe having the "C" tag wouldn't be bad, since several authentic "trad" things have composers (Junior Creham comes to mind).
I'd imagine that you can put the C: tag into the main body of the programming if it's an original tune -- would that stay in there, Jeremy, or be stripped out automatically? It wouldn't be in the gif version, but it would be there in the coding, if it isn't.
Dexy, I doubt anyone would crucify an original tune. Bad karma, first of all, and no one needs more of that! Post away!
Let's see...in recent memory, there's the tune that Jorge named for Glauber's new daughter, Miss Laura Katarina Ribeiro. And Kerri's tune that was written for a thread discussion, The Drab Plateau. Weren't there some others?
I put in an self written tune, but I wish that I hadn't. This site could very easily be over-run by self written tunes leaving the tunes that people actually play at sessions in the dust.
It would be nice to have a forum for new tunes though.
The discussion we had a month or so ago, on whimsical tune names, generated a lot of compositions. The ones i remember, besides the ones already mentioned, Zina, are "Toss the fiddles", "Bang your frog on the sofa", "Paddy goes to Hell"... I'm sure there are more.
It would be nice to be able to put these not-yet-trad tunes in a separate section, or to be able to filter them out somehow. More work for Jeremy!
Zina, i think any ":" tags in the ABC body get stripped out. The "C" tag would be nice not only for self-inflicted tunes, but also for trad tunes where the composer is known.
The C field would be useful for self-composed tunes, or where the composer is known with some certainty. A potential risk, though, would be that some people might post the wrong names for composers for tunes. It would be counterproductive to muck up the living history of these tunes by crediting the wrong people, and I'd guess that few of us (myself included) know that much about the tunes and their composers to post composer's names with any real certainty.
So why not use the comments section to post the composer's name (definitely if it's a tune you've written), along with the paper trail of evidence. I sometimes post a composer's name if it's given in the liner notes on the cd I learned it from, or if I can trace it through Fintan Vallely's Companion to Irish Music or Brendan Breathnach's collections. I haven't always been so careful, but perhaps all of us should start revealing our sources. That way, if there's a debate, it can be an *informed* debate.
For example, if I posted Maudabawn Chapel, I'd list the composer as Ed Reavy, and cite the liner notes on Eileen Ivers' WIld Blue cd. That way, I'm not the "authority," just simply passing along the information from Ivers (or more likely Mick Moloney).
As for posting original tunes, I'm all for it as long as it's done with the big picture in mind and a sense of discretion. New tunes are an important way for the tradition to grow...we'd have a dozen tunes instead of the 'tousands and 'tousands we enjoy if no one ever wrote and dissemiinated new tunes. Remember that Arbo Doughty posted his Moth in the Lantern here, a nice tune that's already been recorded (in modified form) by Kevin Burke.
How about a few ground rules for original compositions? I'd suggest:
Original tunes should fall within Irish (and other Celtic) traditional forms and feature generally accepted trad characteristics.
Original tunes should be clearly labeled as such, not pawned off as "composer unknown" or part of the tradition (at least not until they're widely played by trad musicians!).
Set a submission limit of no more than one original tune per person per week. (If we get overrun with original tunes, we can make this more restrictive.)
I don't think there's much reason to be paranoid about being "over-run" with new compositions, folks. I don't think we need to regulate this at all, and I'd rather we didn't. It sounds rather discouraging to composers who wish to share their gift through this forum to demand they try to restrain themselves - suggesting it's a grudging cuncession rather than an embracing of creative talent. There are 'tousands of old tunes. Someone came up with all of them at some point, and they are still with us because no-one said to O'Carolan "Well, OK, but try to restrain yourself to one tune a week."
I am a composer - I've writen dozens of songs / lyrics for the guitar, adaptations and arrangements and compositions for the harp and piano, and ONE (count it!) fiddle tune. Would I be correct in assuming whipping up hundreds of new Irish tunes, hoping to make them sound like old Irish tunes is something not very many of us do? Or if we do, not very often?
Just a thought. Some of these comments make this site sound unfriendly to composers. I just wanted to cast my "pro" vote. If you are a composer, go ahead! Slap on as many tunes as you like! If I don't like them, I won't learn them. Simple as that.
I never intended my comments to be unfriendly to composers. I come up with tunes myself all the time. And yes, they do all sound Irish because that's what I play 90 percent of the time.
Putting some sort of limit on the number of new compositions submitted to the session was just a suggestion, with the idea that some of us may have 30 to 2,00,000,000 tunes stockpiled just waiting to unload on a captive audience. And if they're not interesting...well, I was hoping to give Jeremy an out rather than more actively discouraging new tunes. He's already asked us not to submit too many tunes at a time. New compositions could *possibly* add to the weekly onslaught.
We're a very diverse bunch who meet online here, and rather than presume some common sense of discretion and taste, I thought it might be useful to set a few ground rules. That comes from my experience doing a lot of group work (helping people seek agreement on nasty natural resource problems). My last post asked for other ideas, and I'd cave in in a hearbeat if I'm a minority of one with these concerns.
Perhaps Jeremy will weigh in on all this and suggest a direction.....
Will
P.S. I also don't see how limiting original compositions to one a week per person at The Session should dampen anyone's ambition to compose. I would hope this isn't their only outlet or reason for composing!
This is a real can of worms.
Out of 100 tunes I’ve written I’ve only clung on to about 5 of them. When I composed every one of them I thought it was was the best one ever. However on a second listen, or playing the tune for other musicians I found that 95 per cent of them were pure doo-doo.
I suggested another forum for self-composed tunes because I don’t think this site is the right place for it. A site devoted to sharing newly composed tunes with other ITM musicians would be the place. Composers should be open to & expecting criticism – whether acclaim or dispraise. When a tune, (or any other creative form for that matter) is reviewed by peers the composer learns how to perfect that skill. Many things can go wrong in a tune - for example what works on one instrument may be all but playable on another instrument due to range or key. The composer may throw together an ill thought out tune for the sole purpose of hanging a funny name on it. Or the composer may be trying to razzle-dazzle you with their boundless knowledge of music theory by writing a jig based on an Indian raga scale – that’s fine for Indian music… you get my point, getting some input helps build better tunes.
Another fear is that I’ve known many people who pop out a new tunes all the time & don’t care if the tune is any good. They just are hoping they hit gold & end up with fame by being the author of a common session tune (or a gizillion of them). If this site becomes a forum for new tunes, the chestnuts may be lost in the mix. After all, at all the "meatspace" sessions I've ever been to - the chestnuts far outnumber the "I just wrote a tune"-tunes
So Brad and I are a minority of at least *two*...and hey, we finally agree on something!
From my own experience, I can vouch that some of us may find it safer to trot out a new composition here than risk playing it during face time at our local sessions. And I don't think that's what Jeremy envisioned when he opened this forum to all of us.
Maybe we should *ask* composers to try out their new material on their friends, and post only the "keepers" here.
What we're talking about here is our collective expectations that we'll consistently find "good tunes" at The Session, just like most of us want to sit in on real world sessions with good crack and music. Trouble is, "good" is relative and highly subjective, and sometimes you have to listen to a lot of scratch and caterwaul to hear one or two gems. As much as possible, we should be welcoming and tolerant of one another's efforts here, yet work to preserve the quality of the tune archive. This is a fine line to walk, remarkably similar to a real world session where you want to welcome newbies but still maintain a "good" sound. I'd suggest that the same basic etiquette applies--if you're unsure of a tune, stay in the background (don't play it loudly--and don't post it); spend a lot of time listening to the session before jumping in (study how other tunes have been posted--with ornaments or without, what kinds of comments have accompanied them, etc), and when you're ready to play/post a tune, do it with respect to the tune and to your session mates. This last point may be more important here than in a real world session because a posted tune stays around a lot longer than those noises you fling into the circle at the pub. Errors or weak renditions take on a life of their own in print.
Do I sound like the anti-fun police? I honestly don't mean to, but in the case of sharing this music, I think we can all have more fun if we demonstrate a little care in the act of sharing. Oh god, now I sound like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood....
Yes, we have first snow today here in Chicago. Unbeliavable we got to the middle of December before we saw the white stuff.
Maybe we don't need to worry too much about self-inflicted compositions. If they become a problem, then we can institute a trad police to keep them under control.
It would be nice to be able to separate them from the real trad stuff, but then Jeremy also has other things to do (bouzouki practice! ).
All very good points. I still favor personal discretion over regulation. Already there are too many tunes to count posted here, and it's highly likely that the ones I've never heard of outside this forum will never get a second peek. I would be very surprised if new material could outweigh the old in here, therefore it doesn't make me nervous. Even if such a person exists in the world (who knows?) would one or two lurking bad composers with a hundred terrible tunes waiting for an outlet make such an impact on the site? And for the sake of restraining them, do you want to discourage the writer who has one absolute peach of a tune to share for the sake of stifling the "torrent" of boring tunes? Aren't some of the tunes on the site (now I'm going to get myself in trouble...) ALREADY boring, even though they're old? Can we not use the same criteria each of us uses to sift through the old tunes to sift through new tunes?
Hugs and kisses all around,
One immovable anarchist ;-D
Hmmm. Well now, Kerri, it has always struck me that anarchists really love anarchy a lot so long as THEY aren't discombobulated by any of it -- true? Or false? *grin*
"Those who abhor regulations from sheer exhaustion with beurocracy and a desire for a simpler system of society,"
and
"Those who abhor regulation from an innate faith in the personal judgement of the human citizens on earth,"
SOUNDS really good, but...hello? Hello? Are these people seeing the same kind of people *I* see every day on the roads and in the stores and in the offices? What exactly do they have innate faith in the personal judgement of the human citizens ABOUT, do you suppose?
That they'll all be rational?
You're talking to a woman who teaches dance and had a complaint a bit back that she told a student that he was too fat to dance! And what I *said* was that in order to keep his center stabilized, he needed to pull up tall and keep his abs pulled in to his spine.
"a desire for a simpler system of society"?
Whose version of that simpler society would that be, exactly? Mine, or the guy down the street who thinks that certain minorities of our neighborhood (and I'm not quite sure he doesn't mean MY minority group) should be shot on sight, and I'm not sure he's joking?
So....which kind of anarchist are *you*, Kerri? *grin* I suppose I'd better stop now or Glauber will be along telling me to stay to the point. *snicker*
Hmmm... How do I segue back into the topic without losing the interesting anarchy sidetrack....
I am the kind of anarchist that just ignores the rules completely in favor of my own common sense. I jaywalk, I go the wrong way down one way streets, I park in the lots of businesses I do not intend to immediately patronize, I lie on my income tax returns to get as much back as I can, and I occasionally play an original tune at a traditional session. (Deft, n'est ce pas?)
There may be a nazi who lives down the street from me who would like to deport his non-white neighbours, and there may be a terrible trad composer on the sidelines waiting to pour ten thousand crappy tunes into the session, but I am not required to pay any attention at all to either of these people, and neither is anyone else.
If the gentleman who lives near you were actually out in the world, shooting minorities, there would be a serious problem, but he's a perfect example of the effectiveness of my theory:
Here is just about the biggest idiot you could find, saying the stupidest things you could think of, but despite the fact he SAYS he would like minorities to be shot on sight, somewhere inside his toxic and corrupted soul, there is enough good old fashioned common sense that he is not DOING it.
You may argue that is only because of the theoretical "rule of law", but as far as I know, the fact that it is against the law has never stopped anyone from smoking pot or biking down pedestrian pathways.
I don't think having a rule about original tunes isn't going to stop anyone (or start anyone) doing something they aren't already doing here. It just gives us a rule. If that makes us feel better, great! Let's make more! If not, ignore it! That's what we all do with rules we don't like. (I hope).
bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.
Peace, brethren (and sistren) My sermon is complete.
What Kerri favors isn't anarchy, it's just Canadian democracy! ; - )
"Not paying attention to these people" strikes me as ironic, even tragic, given that not paying attention is precisely what hit the WTC on 9-11. Here in Montana (in Billings) a few years back, some skinheads declared war on Hanukah, knocking over stones in a Jewish cemetary, vandalizing a synagog, and throwing a rock through the bedroom window of a young boy asleep...because there was a menorah in the window. People in Billings quickly realized that we do indeed have to pay attention to such things and soon nearly every home in town had printed menorahs in the windows.
We should pay attention to these things BEFORE someone gets hurt.
Now, I'm not sure how we went from posting original compositions to racism, and the analogy would be laughable if racism weren't (laughable, that is), but my concern here is that Jeremy does in fact have to pay attention to what gets posted on his site. He's the one who converts the abc files into sheet music and a sound file. He's already asked us all not to submit too many tunes at a time--because it's happened. And he's reminded us several times that the site is intended to feature the *dance music of Ireland.* He's shown remarkable generosity and tolerance in letting some of us post original compositions, and my guess is that this will continue as long as those original pieces fall close to the tradition and don't take the place of tunes more common to sessions around the global neighborhood.
It's funny that this debate has gone on so long here, since the "rule" is already out there simply because I posted it AS A SUGGESTION and people who read this thread (anyone else out there besides the four of us too stubborn to shut up?) will probably think before posting tunes (original or not).
Sigh. Sorry Kerri. To me ground rules are nothing more than an attempt to make common sense actually *common.* The point was to start a discussion on etiquette for submitting tunes, much like etiquette for sitting in at a real world session. I wonder what Dexy--who started all this--thinks?
But Kerri, the reason he *doesn't* shoot minorities on sight is because -- tada -- there's a rule against it, with fairly stringent consequences to the action.
Jaywalking laws are there to protect the jaywalkers from getting hit, going down one way streets the wrong way means you might get into an accident, blah blah blah. Doing those things are of course someone's own choice, and they get to take consequences. And -- the law HAS kept people from smoking pot or biking down pedestrian pathways, it just hasn't stopped YOU from doing it. *grin* That's sort of a crucial difference there, don't you think?
I imagine arguing about a rule actually might make us feel like we're doing something, but when it comes right down to it, Jeremy makes the final call, because he has to pay for the space on the server. If someone starts glutting the session with original and unwanted tunes (I'd imagine both of those variables would need to be true), I would think Jeremy would write a quiet e-mail.
But -- an interesting conversation! I'm always up for that. And Kerri -- that was EVER so adroit and well-done...way to shoehorn both subjects into one! hehehe
Oh, and the old philosophy major in me can't help but respond to the idea that most of us ignore the rules we don't like. Actually, I hate standing in lines, one of the more ubiquitous rules of society. But I do it because bullying my way ahead of everyone else at the grocery store or bank or voting booth would be counterproductive. You may say that's common sense, but that sense has to be drilled into us through 12 years of social indoctrination (politely known here Stateside as public school). Just ask my 12 year old...he hates it when people butt in line, and it happens EVERY day to him. I'd be hugely disappointed if we all ignored the rules we don't like--junior high was bad enough the first time around. *grin*
So Dexy, when are you going to nail abc and submit a tune or two? If you have any questions about posting in abc, ask away (maybe use the thread set up for that purpose, "Learning to use abc"). Obviously some of us would like to see what you've composed (just not all 45 tunes at once!).
Holy smokes!! We're talking tunes - not to be likened with KKK skinheads or 9/11.
Go ahead if you want to post a self written tune, but don't go crying if someone says that it sucks - and if you haven't tested it out for a few friends first - it probably will. Writing a tune is not a one sitting affair - it's just like creative writing where an idea sparks more & more ideas 'til you have a rough draft - then it needs to be refined, it should be edited by peers somewhere along the line. Remember that once a tune is posted, the ABC's are on the web for the world to judge and can't be pulled back. Even if you contacted Jeremy to pull the ABC's off the site who knows if it's already made it's way into another ABC tune dB. When someone comes across a garbage tune with your name on it - your name is now garbage too. These are some precautions that should be considered before posting a tune.
As far as Anarchy...
When I was a teenager I thought arnarchy was a good thing, then I visited a totally lawless ghetto in Newark, NJ - after all the gunshots, drug deals, chop shops and generally getting the piss scared out of me I realised two things...
1. Anarchy is a BAD thing.
2. Anarchy can never really happen because their will always be a moral majority enforcing some kind of "laws".
... play free jazz, not Irtrad.
... don't use the word discombobulated.
... know how to spell bureaucracy (it's in their business card).
... don't go walking in Newark ghettos.
This talk about anarchy reminds me of the book "The Man Who Was Thursday" (G. K. Chesterton). Not for any message in particular, but that's a cool book. It has a sense of absurdity that correlates well with the so-called post-9/11 world ("world" here being used in the American English sense of the geographical area between Mexico and Canada).
Distrust politicians, distrust true believers, play music, try to end the day with the same number of arms and legs as when you started. Be decent to people, be grateful, don't overdo things. This too shall pass!
Wow, I've never been part of the moral majority before. Didn't think Irish music would take me there, either....
I thought we were talking about s/Session etiquette....
Brad, you're analogy of tune writing to creative writing is apt, except that sometimes tunes and poems do pop into my head unannounced and whole, and they stand the test of time and exposure to session mates and audiences, despite never being edited or refined beyond their initial inspiration. True, these are rare birds, but they tend to have a strong organic structure and interesting melodic or rhythmic hooks.
Cheers Will, I would like a bit of advice. The first tune I would like to submit is a simple little polka. It's the first of a set of 3, written while on a trip through Glen Clova, which is about 25 miles from where I live in Scotland. After I type it in as ABCdoes it show up as sheet music so I can check it over before it goes on the site. It is 2/4 timing. Can you write in ABC how this first bar would be written. Quaver, 2 semiquavers, dotted quaver, semiquaver.
I hope I've explained this OK. Dexy
Polkas are not my strong suit, so if I completely foul this up, someone please rescue Dexy (and me).
Unfortunately, your abc's won't be converted into sheet music and a sound file until you click the final "confirm" button. For this reason, I usually proofread my abc's several times, playing along as I re-read them, to make absolutely certain I've put it down right.
When you go to post your polka, select polka on the tune type menu. This automatically puts you in 2/4 time. As I read your explanation above, the first two bars of your polka would look something like (I'll make up notes--the important thing here is the numbers or lack thereof):
|D2 FA|d3 c|
The "2" makes the D a quaver (think of it as two times as long as a semiquaver, which is the basic unit in 2/4 time), and the "3" makes the d a dotted quaver. You don't have to do anything special to the semiquavers because the software "knows" that you're in 2/4 time. Note that the numbers
And to show a dotted semiquaver followed by a 1/16 note (a not uncommon polka rhythm), use the "greater than" symbol between the two notes: B>c
Hope this helps. It always helps me to scan the ABC Tutorial when I'm not sure about soemthing. Try writing out your tune on scratch paper in abcs while refering to the tutorial to answer any questions that arise. Then, when you've got a clean final draft on paper, type it in The Session's tune archive.
Hi Will, thanks for your instant reply. I'm still puzzled. You say the 2 makes the D a quaver, but I have been trying to work this out from Egans Polka which is on the site. None of the quavers in the sheetmusic have a 2 written after them on the ABC. Am I reading this wrong. How do you do the double dottet barlines at the end of each part.
Dexy
Dexy, go to http://ecf-guest.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/ABCcontrib.html. You can put your ABC in there and hit the "gif" button at the bottom and instantly see a gif for the ABC. It's very handy for us ABC-almost-users. (if you can't read music, it also can make a midi out of it for you to listen to.) There's also a tutorial link from there to tell you how to write it all if Will can't explain it to you...
Hmmm...my Scottish isn't so good. By quavers, I assume you mean quarter notes, correct? I just looked at Egan's polka on this site, and all of the quarter notes are designated in the abc's by the "2". The first one in that tune is a d2 (3rd or 4th bar, I think).
Regardless, that's how it works.
To do the repeat symbols, use a colon ( : ) inside the bars at both ends of the part that repeats |: :|
If you have different endings for a repeated part (one for repeating the part, and another to transition into the next part), you write them as:
|1 blah blah:|2 blah blah|
Note that the repeat symbol goes inside the end bar for ending #1, and there's no repeat symbol in ending #2. Also, leave a space after the number--before the first note.
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to practice all this a bunch before you actually post a tune here. Once you hit the confirm button, there's no going back. You want it to be perfect, down to the smallest detail. The easies mistakes to make are missing repeat symbols, confusion between upper and lowercase letters (which distinguish between different octaves of the same notes), wrong key selected, and confusion over sharps, naturals, and flats.
I've noticed that people on several other web discussions are referring surfers to The Session for it's "excellent" archive of tunes. That should be a head's up to all of us here that we need to be careful, precise, and knowledgable about the tunes we post. Sometimes I think this is even more critical when it comes to posting original compositions because nobody else has ever heard this tune before--we can't make an educated guess at the "right" notes if an error creeps into the notation. But I hope we're all careful when posting common session tunes too, so that the archive continues to be a valuable source of *playable* versions of good tunes.
In that vein, it is helpful for the rest of us to know what instrument(s) you play if you post a tune, particularly if a lot of instrument-specific ornamentation is included. So post a comment in the tune file about whether this is a flute version, or fiddle, or banjo, or whatever.
I agree, glauber, but some tunes don't make much sense without it. I dread to think what a person might do to the second half of Last Night's Fun if the rolls on those f's weren't indicated. Actually, I've heard what happens--the Boston Pops recorded Toss the Feathers with no ornamentation where the rolls or triplets belonged, and it had three of us falling out of our chairs with laughter. It was awful...Irish Muzak.
I prefer to show some ornamentation and offer an easier or more basic melody line for the ornamented phrases in abc in the comment section for the tune. it's always a judgment call, at best.
You're right, of course. I think Last Night's Fun is one of those pieces that don't make sense anyway until you hear someone play it. So far i haven't, and it doesn't.
Ah, the silky sound of that Irish string section! Plus the famous Boston Pops Irish trombones! Pure magic.
Will, a slight misunderstanding between us on crotches , quavers etc. I now realise these terms are not in common use in the States, if that is where you are. It might have turned out better if I did submit using Quavers as quarter notes. I am impressed how helpful people are on this site. That's musicians for you though. I think I now understand ABC enough to get my act together. Zina, the site you have mentioned sounds just what I need and would be excellent for anybody who is not familiar with ABC. Thanks a lot. With all this interest I now feel quite shy about posting my very humble composition. Get your fiddles ready. It won't be long now. Dexy
The Glen Clova Polka is now on the site. I hope I managed the ABC alright. Please have mercy on it. Thanks again to everyone for all the help. I've learned a lot over the last couple of days. It is a true saying, "Your never too old to learn."
Merry Christmas to you all, Dexy
Okay, I guess it's time for me to weigh in with some opinions here.
First of all, I'll address the issue of attributing authorship of tunes, where it's known.
Will hit the nail on the head when he said that the comments section should be used for exactly this kind of thing.
Remember, The Session isn't just a collection of ABCs or gifs or midi files. What I like about the tunes on this site is that they consist of all these file formats plus the additional information that really breathes life into the tunes. Without the comments, the tunes are just data. With the comments, the tunes become information and a dialogue is started.
For me anyway, a tune without comments is like a session wihout chat.
All that is a very roundabout way of saying that if you're ever in any doubt about where to add additional information that doesn't fit in the tune details or ABC notation, use the comments.
I'm sure there's a whole legal minefield built around original compositions being posted on the internet. If you're posting somebody else's original composition, it would be good to get permission first. As far as I'm concerned though, all tunes posted to The Session are assumed to be either traditional or posted with permission.
(If there are any lawyers reading this, then I'd just like to point out that this isn't a commercial enterprise and all tunes are posted for personal use only.)
Now, as for how welcome original compositions are...
As long as they don't swamp the "traditional" tunes, then there's no problem. I think a ratio of say, one in ten tunes being original compositions would be okay. I'm not going to impose any hard and fast rules, though. I'm going to rely on an anarchic system of self-regulation
Actually, it's just common sense. If you want to post an original composition but you notice that there have been quite a few already posted in recent days, then just hold off posting that tune for a while (or post some trad tunes first to balance out the ratio).
Okay, I think I've addressed the important points that were raised by this discussion.
As for the political theory...
In theory, I suppose The Session could be a dictatorship ruled by me. After all, I have the power to delete tunes, censor comments and ban members.
In practice, I've never had to exercise these powers. Yet The Session ticks along smoothy. I think that's because it's not just me who gets something out of this site - everybody here has a vested interest in making things work.
I suppose you could call that Anarchy. I call it community
Aha, the man behind the smoke and mirrors finally shows his face!
It's good to hear from you Jeremy. Some of us old-timers miss your weekly comments on the tunes you posted, back before you opened the site and let the stampeding herd take over. *grin*
Dexy's new polka is a good example of a recently composed original tune that fits well into the trad repertoire, is fun and easy to play, and does no harm at all to the ratio of "new" to "old" tunes. It's also a perfect example of how we all gain by extending a helping hand--explaining abc's to a newcomer brings a new tune (and a new friend) into the fold. *Community* indeed, and a vibrant one at that.
"The Session could be a dictatorship ruled by me"!!! Heh -- pretty good -- okay, I vote that Jeremy should now be addressed as either His Benevolent Dictator Sir, or possibly Grand Poobah. Jeremy, I too miss the comments you used to post. Don't suppose we leave you time enough these days to start up again? You hardly even post to the discussions these latter days...
Dexy, another very cool tool is Henrik's ABCMus. You'll find the link to the site (it's shareware) in the links section of The Session. It's a great way to hear a pretty decent (especially compared to MIDI players) rendering of your ABC on the fly. I use both ABCMus (Henrik, as soon as this client pays up, I intend to send you a PayPal payment!) and John Chamber's tool quite a bit when I use ABC, which I do quite a lot of these days, even though I'm not very good at it.
"His Benevolent Dictator" is good! How about "The Father of the Session"? We need some tunes now! How about "The Session Ruler" or "The Rights of Jeremy"?
I love ABCMus. The only thing it doesn't do is printing the dots. I use abcm2ps (or sometimes the old abc2ps) to generate Postscript, then Ghostscript (free) or Acrobat (expensive) to print it. I use a little print driver called "fineprint" to print in booklet format. Zina, buy the thing already! It's only $10.
The Session Ruler! That's a good name for a hornpipe, I'd think.
How about, the Godfather of The Session? Heh.
Yeah, Henrik, if you could get ABCMus to generate gifs, then you'd really have something there. I'll pay up after Christmas -- six months of unemployment toasted our finances!
Your own compositions
Your own compositions
Are there many people writing their own compositions. I have looked through the session and I've not managed to find any yet. Probably not looked hard enough. I have written about 45 myself and plan to submit some of them but I'm not too good at the ABC format. Once I get my head round it, I'll stick on a couple of my tunes and hope they don't get crucified. Dexy
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by Dexy
Re: Your own compositions
There's a bunch of them. Problem is, since this is a site for traditional music, there's no place in the ABC for the composer. So, they all immediatelly become trad!
Even i have one, called "Boil the Coffee Early".
Maybe having the "C" tag wouldn't be bad, since several authentic "trad" things have composers (Junior Creham comes to mind).
g
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
I'd imagine that you can put the C: tag into the main body of the programming if it's an original tune -- would that stay in there, Jeremy, or be stripped out automatically? It wouldn't be in the gif version, but it would be there in the coding, if it isn't.
Dexy, I doubt anyone would crucify an original tune. Bad karma, first of all, and no one needs more of that! Post away!
Let's see...in recent memory, there's the tune that Jorge named for Glauber's new daughter, Miss Laura Katarina Ribeiro. And Kerri's tune that was written for a thread discussion, The Drab Plateau. Weren't there some others?
Zina
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
I have only one composition, a hornpipe, but I don't know how to submit it with the ABC format either.
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by aniri
Re: Your own compositions
Me too I have a composition, only one though. I would like to submit it but I can't understand the ABC format either.
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by aniri
God, I hate my computer, I'm sorry,,,I thought I lost the first comment...
# Posted on December 16th 2001 by aniri
Re: Your own compositions
I put in an self written tune, but I wish that I hadn't. This site could very easily be over-run by self written tunes leaving the tunes that people actually play at sessions in the dust.
It would be nice to have a forum for new tunes though.
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by Mad Baloney
Re: Your own compositions
The discussion we had a month or so ago, on whimsical tune names, generated a lot of compositions. The ones i remember, besides the ones already mentioned, Zina, are "Toss the fiddles", "Bang your frog on the sofa", "Paddy goes to Hell"... I'm sure there are more.
It would be nice to be able to put these not-yet-trad tunes in a separate section, or to be able to filter them out somehow. More work for Jeremy!
Zina, i think any ":" tags in the ABC body get stripped out. The "C" tag would be nice not only for self-inflicted tunes, but also for trad tunes where the composer is known.
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
Good idea, Brad, Glauber -- Jeremy, would a new section for "self-inflicted" tunes be possible? (Jigs, Reels, Originals...)
zls
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
excuse my ignorance but what is the c tag?
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by Dexy
ABC tags (actually, fields)
It's the tag you use to list the composer, in ABC notation.
The ABC standard is described here
http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc2mtex/abc.txt
and here
http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/abc-draft.txt
In fact (sorry, my mistake), in the standard these things are called "fields" (e.g.: the C field).
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
The C field would be useful for self-composed tunes, or where the composer is known with some certainty. A potential risk, though, would be that some people might post the wrong names for composers for tunes. It would be counterproductive to muck up the living history of these tunes by crediting the wrong people, and I'd guess that few of us (myself included) know that much about the tunes and their composers to post composer's names with any real certainty.
So why not use the comments section to post the composer's name (definitely if it's a tune you've written), along with the paper trail of evidence. I sometimes post a composer's name if it's given in the liner notes on the cd I learned it from, or if I can trace it through Fintan Vallely's Companion to Irish Music or Brendan Breathnach's collections. I haven't always been so careful, but perhaps all of us should start revealing our sources. That way, if there's a debate, it can be an *informed* debate.
For example, if I posted Maudabawn Chapel, I'd list the composer as Ed Reavy, and cite the liner notes on Eileen Ivers' WIld Blue cd. That way, I'm not the "authority," just simply passing along the information from Ivers (or more likely Mick Moloney).
As for posting original tunes, I'm all for it as long as it's done with the big picture in mind and a sense of discretion. New tunes are an important way for the tradition to grow...we'd have a dozen tunes instead of the 'tousands and 'tousands we enjoy if no one ever wrote and dissemiinated new tunes. Remember that Arbo Doughty posted his Moth in the Lantern here, a nice tune that's already been recorded (in modified form) by Kevin Burke.
How about a few ground rules for original compositions? I'd suggest:
Original tunes should fall within Irish (and other Celtic) traditional forms and feature generally accepted trad characteristics.
Original tunes should be clearly labeled as such, not pawned off as "composer unknown" or part of the tradition (at least not until they're widely played by trad musicians!).
Set a submission limit of no more than one original tune per person per week. (If we get overrun with original tunes, we can make this more restrictive.)
Any other ideas?
Will
# Posted on December 17th 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
I don't think there's much reason to be paranoid about being "over-run" with new compositions, folks. I don't think we need to regulate this at all, and I'd rather we didn't. It sounds rather discouraging to composers who wish to share their gift through this forum to demand they try to restrain themselves - suggesting it's a grudging cuncession rather than an embracing of creative talent. There are 'tousands of old tunes. Someone came up with all of them at some point, and they are still with us because no-one said to O'Carolan "Well, OK, but try to restrain yourself to one tune a week."
I am a composer - I've writen dozens of songs / lyrics for the guitar, adaptations and arrangements and compositions for the harp and piano, and ONE (count it!) fiddle tune. Would I be correct in assuming whipping up hundreds of new Irish tunes, hoping to make them sound like old Irish tunes is something not very many of us do? Or if we do, not very often?
Just a thought. Some of these comments make this site sound unfriendly to composers. I just wanted to cast my "pro" vote. If you are a composer, go ahead! Slap on as many tunes as you like! If I don't like them, I won't learn them. Simple as that.
# Posted on December 18th 2001 by Kerri Brown
Re: Your own compositions
Well, I'd vote that it's Jeremy's call. It's his server space, after all!
Zina
# Posted on December 18th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
Kerri, good to hear from you again!
I never intended my comments to be unfriendly to composers. I come up with tunes myself all the time. And yes, they do all sound Irish because that's what I play 90 percent of the time.
Putting some sort of limit on the number of new compositions submitted to the session was just a suggestion, with the idea that some of us may have 30 to 2,00,000,000 tunes stockpiled just waiting to unload on a captive audience.
And if they're not interesting...well, I was hoping to give Jeremy an out rather than more actively discouraging new tunes. He's already asked us not to submit too many tunes at a time. New compositions could *possibly* add to the weekly onslaught.
We're a very diverse bunch who meet online here, and rather than presume some common sense of discretion and taste, I thought it might be useful to set a few ground rules. That comes from my experience doing a lot of group work (helping people seek agreement on nasty natural resource problems). My last post asked for other ideas, and I'd cave in in a hearbeat if I'm a minority of one with these concerns.
Perhaps Jeremy will weigh in on all this and suggest a direction.....
Will
# Posted on December 18th 2001 by Will CPT
P.S. I also don't see how limiting original compositions to one a week per person at The Session should dampen anyone's ambition to compose. I would hope this isn't their only outlet or reason for composing!
# Posted on December 18th 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
This is a real can of worms.
Out of 100 tunes I’ve written I’ve only clung on to about 5 of them. When I composed every one of them I thought it was was the best one ever. However on a second listen, or playing the tune for other musicians I found that 95 per cent of them were pure doo-doo.
I suggested another forum for self-composed tunes because I don’t think this site is the right place for it. A site devoted to sharing newly composed tunes with other ITM musicians would be the place. Composers should be open to & expecting criticism – whether acclaim or dispraise. When a tune, (or any other creative form for that matter) is reviewed by peers the composer learns how to perfect that skill. Many things can go wrong in a tune - for example what works on one instrument may be all but playable on another instrument due to range or key. The composer may throw together an ill thought out tune for the sole purpose of hanging a funny name on it. Or the composer may be trying to razzle-dazzle you with their boundless knowledge of music theory by writing a jig based on an Indian raga scale – that’s fine for Indian music… you get my point, getting some input helps build better tunes.
Another fear is that I’ve known many people who pop out a new tunes all the time & don’t care if the tune is any good. They just are hoping they hit gold & end up with fame by being the author of a common session tune (or a gizillion of them). If this site becomes a forum for new tunes, the chestnuts may be lost in the mix. After all, at all the "meatspace" sessions I've ever been to - the chestnuts far outnumber the "I just wrote a tune"-tunes
# Posted on December 19th 2001 by Mad Baloney
The can of wormy compositions
So Brad and I are a minority of at least *two*...and hey, we finally agree on something!
From my own experience, I can vouch that some of us may find it safer to trot out a new composition here than risk playing it during face time at our local sessions. And I don't think that's what Jeremy envisioned when he opened this forum to all of us.
Maybe we should *ask* composers to try out their new material on their friends, and post only the "keepers" here.
What we're talking about here is our collective expectations that we'll consistently find "good tunes" at The Session, just like most of us want to sit in on real world sessions with good crack and music. Trouble is, "good" is relative and highly subjective, and sometimes you have to listen to a lot of scratch and caterwaul to hear one or two gems. As much as possible, we should be welcoming and tolerant of one another's efforts here, yet work to preserve the quality of the tune archive. This is a fine line to walk, remarkably similar to a real world session where you want to welcome newbies but still maintain a "good" sound. I'd suggest that the same basic etiquette applies--if you're unsure of a tune, stay in the background (don't play it loudly--and don't post it); spend a lot of time listening to the session before jumping in (study how other tunes have been posted--with ornaments or without, what kinds of comments have accompanied them, etc), and when you're ready to play/post a tune, do it with respect to the tune and to your session mates. This last point may be more important here than in a real world session because a posted tune stays around a lot longer than those noises you fling into the circle at the pub. Errors or weak renditions take on a life of their own in print.
Do I sound like the anti-fun police? I honestly don't mean to, but in the case of sharing this music, I think we can all have more fun if we demonstrate a little care in the act of sharing. Oh god, now I sound like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood....
Will
# Posted on December 19th 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
Heh -- you and Brad agree on LOTS of things, Will. I've noticed. Really.
So let's make the most of this bee-yoo-tee-full day....
Zina
# Posted on December 19th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
Yes, we have first snow today here in Chicago. Unbeliavable we got to the middle of December before we saw the white stuff.
Maybe we don't need to worry too much about self-inflicted compositions. If they become a problem, then we can institute a trad police to keep them under control.
It would be nice to be able to separate them from the real trad stuff, but then Jeremy also has other things to do (bouzouki practice!
).
# Posted on December 19th 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
All very good points. I still favor personal discretion over regulation. Already there are too many tunes to count posted here, and it's highly likely that the ones I've never heard of outside this forum will never get a second peek. I would be very surprised if new material could outweigh the old in here, therefore it doesn't make me nervous. Even if such a person exists in the world (who knows?) would one or two lurking bad composers with a hundred terrible tunes waiting for an outlet make such an impact on the site? And for the sake of restraining them, do you want to discourage the writer who has one absolute peach of a tune to share for the sake of stifling the "torrent" of boring tunes? Aren't some of the tunes on the site (now I'm going to get myself in trouble...) ALREADY boring, even though they're old? Can we not use the same criteria each of us uses to sift through the old tunes to sift through new tunes?
Hugs and kisses all around,
One immovable anarchist ;-D
# Posted on December 20th 2001 by Kerri Brown
Re: Your own compositions
Hmmm. Well now, Kerri, it has always struck me that anarchists really love anarchy a lot so long as THEY aren't discombobulated by any of it -- true? Or false? *grin*
Zina
# Posted on December 20th 2001 by Zina Lee
Discombobulated?
There are a few different types of anarchists:
Those who abhor regulations from a desire to be as naughty as they please,
Those who abhor the regulations of others because THEY would rather be in control,
Those who abhor regulations from sheer exhaustion with beurocracy and a desire for a simpler system of society,
Those who abhor regulation from an innate faith in the personal judgement of the human citizens on earth,
And, finally, those who were drunk when they claimed to be anarchists and thought it sounded like a fun way to stir things up at the time.
; ^ )
Kerri
# Posted on December 20th 2001 by Kerri Brown
Re: Your own compositions
"Those who abhor regulations from sheer exhaustion with beurocracy and a desire for a simpler system of society,"
and
"Those who abhor regulation from an innate faith in the personal judgement of the human citizens on earth,"
SOUNDS really good, but...hello? Hello? Are these people seeing the same kind of people *I* see every day on the roads and in the stores and in the offices? What exactly do they have innate faith in the personal judgement of the human citizens ABOUT, do you suppose?
That they'll all be rational?
You're talking to a woman who teaches dance and had a complaint a bit back that she told a student that he was too fat to dance! And what I *said* was that in order to keep his center stabilized, he needed to pull up tall and keep his abs pulled in to his spine.
"a desire for a simpler system of society"?
Whose version of that simpler society would that be, exactly? Mine, or the guy down the street who thinks that certain minorities of our neighborhood (and I'm not quite sure he doesn't mean MY minority group) should be shot on sight, and I'm not sure he's joking?
So....which kind of anarchist are *you*, Kerri? *grin* I suppose I'd better stop now or Glauber will be along telling me to stay to the point. *snicker*
Zina
# Posted on December 20th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
Hmmm... How do I segue back into the topic without losing the interesting anarchy sidetrack....
I am the kind of anarchist that just ignores the rules completely in favor of my own common sense. I jaywalk, I go the wrong way down one way streets, I park in the lots of businesses I do not intend to immediately patronize, I lie on my income tax returns to get as much back as I can, and I occasionally play an original tune at a traditional session. (Deft, n'est ce pas?)
There may be a nazi who lives down the street from me who would like to deport his non-white neighbours, and there may be a terrible trad composer on the sidelines waiting to pour ten thousand crappy tunes into the session, but I am not required to pay any attention at all to either of these people, and neither is anyone else.
If the gentleman who lives near you were actually out in the world, shooting minorities, there would be a serious problem, but he's a perfect example of the effectiveness of my theory:
Here is just about the biggest idiot you could find, saying the stupidest things you could think of, but despite the fact he SAYS he would like minorities to be shot on sight, somewhere inside his toxic and corrupted soul, there is enough good old fashioned common sense that he is not DOING it.
You may argue that is only because of the theoretical "rule of law", but as far as I know, the fact that it is against the law has never stopped anyone from smoking pot or biking down pedestrian pathways.
I don't think having a rule about original tunes isn't going to stop anyone (or start anyone) doing something they aren't already doing here. It just gives us a rule. If that makes us feel better, great! Let's make more! If not, ignore it! That's what we all do with rules we don't like. (I hope).
bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.
Peace, brethren (and sistren) My sermon is complete.
Kerri
# Posted on December 20th 2001 by Kerri Brown
Re: Your own compositions
What Kerri favors isn't anarchy, it's just Canadian democracy! ; - )
"Not paying attention to these people" strikes me as ironic, even tragic, given that not paying attention is precisely what hit the WTC on 9-11. Here in Montana (in Billings) a few years back, some skinheads declared war on Hanukah, knocking over stones in a Jewish cemetary, vandalizing a synagog, and throwing a rock through the bedroom window of a young boy asleep...because there was a menorah in the window. People in Billings quickly realized that we do indeed have to pay attention to such things and soon nearly every home in town had printed menorahs in the windows.
We should pay attention to these things BEFORE someone gets hurt.
Now, I'm not sure how we went from posting original compositions to racism, and the analogy would be laughable if racism weren't (laughable, that is), but my concern here is that Jeremy does in fact have to pay attention to what gets posted on his site. He's the one who converts the abc files into sheet music and a sound file. He's already asked us all not to submit too many tunes at a time--because it's happened. And he's reminded us several times that the site is intended to feature the *dance music of Ireland.* He's shown remarkable generosity and tolerance in letting some of us post original compositions, and my guess is that this will continue as long as those original pieces fall close to the tradition and don't take the place of tunes more common to sessions around the global neighborhood.
It's funny that this debate has gone on so long here, since the "rule" is already out there simply because I posted it AS A SUGGESTION and people who read this thread (anyone else out there besides the four of us too stubborn to shut up?) will probably think before posting tunes (original or not).
Sigh. Sorry Kerri. To me ground rules are nothing more than an attempt to make common sense actually *common.* The point was to start a discussion on etiquette for submitting tunes, much like etiquette for sitting in at a real world session. I wonder what Dexy--who started all this--thinks?
Will
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
But Kerri, the reason he *doesn't* shoot minorities on sight is because -- tada -- there's a rule against it, with fairly stringent consequences to the action.
Jaywalking laws are there to protect the jaywalkers from getting hit, going down one way streets the wrong way means you might get into an accident, blah blah blah. Doing those things are of course someone's own choice, and they get to take consequences. And -- the law HAS kept people from smoking pot or biking down pedestrian pathways, it just hasn't stopped YOU from doing it. *grin* That's sort of a crucial difference there, don't you think?
I imagine arguing about a rule actually might make us feel like we're doing something, but when it comes right down to it, Jeremy makes the final call, because he has to pay for the space on the server. If someone starts glutting the session with original and unwanted tunes (I'd imagine both of those variables would need to be true), I would think Jeremy would write a quiet e-mail.
But -- an interesting conversation! I'm always up for that. And Kerri -- that was EVER so adroit and well-done...way to shoehorn both subjects into one! hehehe
zls
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Zina Lee
Oh, and the old philosophy major in me can't help but respond to the idea that most of us ignore the rules we don't like. Actually, I hate standing in lines, one of the more ubiquitous rules of society. But I do it because bullying my way ahead of everyone else at the grocery store or bank or voting booth would be counterproductive. You may say that's common sense, but that sense has to be drilled into us through 12 years of social indoctrination (politely known here Stateside as public school). Just ask my 12 year old...he hates it when people butt in line, and it happens EVERY day to him. I'd be hugely disappointed if we all ignored the rules we don't like--junior high was bad enough the first time around. *grin*
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
Philosophy major. Will, what ELSE are you going to come up with that you've done? *snicker*
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
But that was the point in declaring philosophy as my major--philosopher's never actually DO anything! And then I switched to English Lit......
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
So that you rarely get PAID for doing something, you mean? *snort*
zls
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Zina Lee
Dexy, where are you?
So Dexy, when are you going to nail abc and submit a tune or two? If you have any questions about posting in abc, ask away (maybe use the thread set up for that purpose, "Learning to use abc"). Obviously some of us would like to see what you've composed (just not all 45 tunes at once!).
Will
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
Holy smokes!! We're talking tunes - not to be likened with KKK skinheads or 9/11.
Go ahead if you want to post a self written tune, but don't go crying if someone says that it sucks - and if you haven't tested it out for a few friends first - it probably will. Writing a tune is not a one sitting affair - it's just like creative writing where an idea sparks more & more ideas 'til you have a rough draft - then it needs to be refined, it should be edited by peers somewhere along the line. Remember that once a tune is posted, the ABC's are on the web for the world to judge and can't be pulled back. Even if you contacted Jeremy to pull the ABC's off the site who knows if it's already made it's way into another ABC tune dB. When someone comes across a garbage tune with your name on it - your name is now garbage too. These are some precautions that should be considered before posting a tune.
As far as Anarchy...
When I was a teenager I thought arnarchy was a good thing, then I visited a totally lawless ghetto in Newark, NJ - after all the gunshots, drug deals, chop shops and generally getting the piss scared out of me I realised two things...
1. Anarchy is a BAD thing.
2. Anarchy can never really happen because their will always be a moral majority enforcing some kind of "laws".
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Mad Baloney
Real anarchists
... play free jazz, not Irtrad.
... don't use the word discombobulated.
... know how to spell bureaucracy (it's in their business card).
... don't go walking in Newark ghettos.
This talk about anarchy reminds me of the book "The Man Who Was Thursday" (G. K. Chesterton). Not for any message in particular, but that's a cool book. It has a sense of absurdity that correlates well with the so-called post-9/11 world ("world" here being used in the American English sense of the geographical area between Mexico and Canada).
Distrust politicians, distrust true believers, play music, try to end the day with the same number of arms and legs as when you started. Be decent to people, be grateful, don't overdo things. This too shall pass!
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
Wow, I've never been part of the moral majority before. Didn't think Irish music would take me there, either....
I thought we were talking about s/Session etiquette....
Brad, you're analogy of tune writing to creative writing is apt, except that sometimes tunes and poems do pop into my head unannounced and whole, and they stand the test of time and exposure to session mates and audiences, despite never being edited or refined beyond their initial inspiration. True, these are rare birds, but they tend to have a strong organic structure and interesting melodic or rhythmic hooks.
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
Cheers Will, I would like a bit of advice. The first tune I would like to submit is a simple little polka. It's the first of a set of 3, written while on a trip through Glen Clova, which is about 25 miles from where I live in Scotland. After I type it in as ABCdoes it show up as sheet music so I can check it over before it goes on the site. It is 2/4 timing. Can you write in ABC how this first bar would be written. Quaver, 2 semiquavers, dotted quaver, semiquaver.
I hope I've explained this OK. Dexy
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Dexy
Re: Your own compositions
Polkas are not my strong suit, so if I completely foul this up, someone please rescue Dexy (and me).
Unfortunately, your abc's won't be converted into sheet music and a sound file until you click the final "confirm" button. For this reason, I usually proofread my abc's several times, playing along as I re-read them, to make absolutely certain I've put it down right.
When you go to post your polka, select polka on the tune type menu. This automatically puts you in 2/4 time. As I read your explanation above, the first two bars of your polka would look something like (I'll make up notes--the important thing here is the numbers or lack thereof):
|D2 FA|d3 c|
The "2" makes the D a quaver (think of it as two times as long as a semiquaver, which is the basic unit in 2/4 time), and the "3" makes the d a dotted quaver. You don't have to do anything special to the semiquavers because the software "knows" that you're in 2/4 time. Note that the numbers
And to show a dotted semiquaver followed by a 1/16 note (a not uncommon polka rhythm), use the "greater than" symbol between the two notes: B>c
Hope this helps. It always helps me to scan the ABC Tutorial when I'm not sure about soemthing. Try writing out your tune on scratch paper in abcs while refering to the tutorial to answer any questions that arise. Then, when you've got a clean final draft on paper, type it in The Session's tune archive.
Looking forward to your polka!
Will
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Ooops...meant to say "Note that the numbers" come *after* the note they modify. I usually put a space afterwards to keep it clear in my mind.
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
Hi Will, thanks for your instant reply. I'm still puzzled. You say the 2 makes the D a quaver, but I have been trying to work this out from Egans Polka which is on the site. None of the quavers in the sheetmusic have a 2 written after them on the ABC. Am I reading this wrong. How do you do the double dottet barlines at the end of each part.
Dexy
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Dexy
Re: Your own compositions
Dexy, go to http://ecf-guest.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/ABCcontrib.html. You can put your ABC in there and hit the "gif" button at the bottom and instantly see a gif for the ABC. It's very handy for us ABC-almost-users. (if you can't read music, it also can make a midi out of it for you to listen to.) There's also a tutorial link from there to tell you how to write it all if Will can't explain it to you...
Zina
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Your own compositions
Hmmm...my Scottish isn't so good. By quavers, I assume you mean quarter notes, correct? I just looked at Egan's polka on this site, and all of the quarter notes are designated in the abc's by the "2". The first one in that tune is a d2 (3rd or 4th bar, I think).
Regardless, that's how it works.
To do the repeat symbols, use a colon ( : ) inside the bars at both ends of the part that repeats |: :|
If you have different endings for a repeated part (one for repeating the part, and another to transition into the next part), you write them as:
|1 blah blah:|2 blah blah|
Note that the repeat symbol goes inside the end bar for ending #1, and there's no repeat symbol in ending #2. Also, leave a space after the number--before the first note.
I can't emphasize enough how important it is to practice all this a bunch before you actually post a tune here. Once you hit the confirm button, there's no going back. You want it to be perfect, down to the smallest detail. The easies mistakes to make are missing repeat symbols, confusion between upper and lowercase letters (which distinguish between different octaves of the same notes), wrong key selected, and confusion over sharps, naturals, and flats.
I've noticed that people on several other web discussions are referring surfers to The Session for it's "excellent" archive of tunes. That should be a head's up to all of us here that we need to be careful, precise, and knowledgable about the tunes we post. Sometimes I think this is even more critical when it comes to posting original compositions because nobody else has ever heard this tune before--we can't make an educated guess at the "right" notes if an error creeps into the notation. But I hope we're all careful when posting common session tunes too, so that the archive continues to be a valuable source of *playable* versions of good tunes.
In that vein, it is helpful for the rest of us to know what instrument(s) you play if you post a tune, particularly if a lot of instrument-specific ornamentation is included. So post a comment in the tune file about whether this is a flute version, or fiddle, or banjo, or whatever.
Will
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
Ornamentation
Or, leave most of the ornamentation off. Ornamentation is usually a matter of personal style anyway.
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
I agree, glauber, but some tunes don't make much sense without it. I dread to think what a person might do to the second half of Last Night's Fun if the rolls on those f's weren't indicated. Actually, I've heard what happens--the Boston Pops recorded Toss the Feathers with no ornamentation where the rolls or triplets belonged, and it had three of us falling out of our chairs with laughter. It was awful...Irish Muzak.
I prefer to show some ornamentation and offer an easier or more basic melody line for the ornamented phrases in abc in the comment section for the tune. it's always a judgment call, at best.
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Will CPT
LNF
You're right, of course. I think Last Night's Fun is one of those pieces that don't make sense anyway until you hear someone play it. So far i haven't, and it doesn't.
Ah, the silky sound of that Irish string section! Plus the famous Boston Pops Irish trombones! Pure magic.
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
Will, a slight misunderstanding between us on crotches , quavers etc. I now realise these terms are not in common use in the States, if that is where you are. It might have turned out better if I did submit using Quavers as quarter notes. I am impressed how helpful people are on this site. That's musicians for you though. I think I now understand ABC enough to get my act together. Zina, the site you have mentioned sounds just what I need and would be excellent for anybody who is not familiar with ABC. Thanks a lot. With all this interest I now feel quite shy about posting my very humble composition. Get your fiddles ready. It won't be long now. Dexy
# Posted on December 21st 2001 by Dexy
Re: Your own compositions
The Glen Clova Polka is now on the site. I hope I managed the ABC alright. Please have mercy on it. Thanks again to everyone for all the help. I've learned a lot over the last couple of days. It is a true saying, "Your never too old to learn."
Merry Christmas to you all, Dexy
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by Dexy
Re: Your own compositions
Okay, I guess it's time for me to weigh in with some opinions here.
First of all, I'll address the issue of attributing authorship of tunes, where it's known.
Will hit the nail on the head when he said that the comments section should be used for exactly this kind of thing.
Remember, The Session isn't just a collection of ABCs or gifs or midi files. What I like about the tunes on this site is that they consist of all these file formats plus the additional information that really breathes life into the tunes. Without the comments, the tunes are just data. With the comments, the tunes become information and a dialogue is started.
For me anyway, a tune without comments is like a session wihout chat.
All that is a very roundabout way of saying that if you're ever in any doubt about where to add additional information that doesn't fit in the tune details or ABC notation, use the comments.
I'm sure there's a whole legal minefield built around original compositions being posted on the internet. If you're posting somebody else's original composition, it would be good to get permission first. As far as I'm concerned though, all tunes posted to The Session are assumed to be either traditional or posted with permission.
(If there are any lawyers reading this, then I'd just like to point out that this isn't a commercial enterprise and all tunes are posted for personal use only.)
Now, as for how welcome original compositions are...
As long as they don't swamp the "traditional" tunes, then there's no problem. I think a ratio of say, one in ten tunes being original compositions would be okay. I'm not going to impose any hard and fast rules, though. I'm going to rely on an anarchic system of self-regulation
Actually, it's just common sense. If you want to post an original composition but you notice that there have been quite a few already posted in recent days, then just hold off posting that tune for a while (or post some trad tunes first to balance out the ratio).
Okay, I think I've addressed the important points that were raised by this discussion.
As for the political theory...
In theory, I suppose The Session could be a dictatorship ruled by me. After all, I have the power to delete tunes, censor comments and ban members.
In practice, I've never had to exercise these powers. Yet The Session ticks along smoothy. I think that's because it's not just me who gets something out of this site - everybody here has a vested interest in making things work.
I suppose you could call that Anarchy. I call it community
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by Jeremy
Re: Your own compositions
Aha, the man behind the smoke and mirrors finally shows his face!
It's good to hear from you Jeremy. Some of us old-timers miss your weekly comments on the tunes you posted, back before you opened the site and let the stampeding herd take over. *grin*
Dexy's new polka is a good example of a recently composed original tune that fits well into the trad repertoire, is fun and easy to play, and does no harm at all to the ratio of "new" to "old" tunes. It's also a perfect example of how we all gain by extending a helping hand--explaining abc's to a newcomer brings a new tune (and a new friend) into the fold. *Community* indeed, and a vibrant one at that.
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by Will CPT
Re: Your own compositions
"The Session could be a dictatorship ruled by me"!!! Heh -- pretty good -- okay, I vote that Jeremy should now be addressed as either His Benevolent Dictator Sir, or possibly Grand Poobah. Jeremy, I too miss the comments you used to post. Don't suppose we leave you time enough these days to start up again? You hardly even post to the discussions these latter days...
Dexy, another very cool tool is Henrik's ABCMus. You'll find the link to the site (it's shareware) in the links section of The Session. It's a great way to hear a pretty decent (especially compared to MIDI players) rendering of your ABC on the fly. I use both ABCMus (Henrik, as soon as this client pays up, I intend to send you a PayPal payment!) and John Chamber's tool quite a bit when I use ABC, which I do quite a lot of these days, even though I'm not very good at it.
Zina
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by Zina Lee
Political ABC
"His Benevolent Dictator" is good! How about "The Father of the Session"? We need some tunes now! How about "The Session Ruler" or "The Rights of Jeremy"?
I love ABCMus. The only thing it doesn't do is printing the dots. I use abcm2ps (or sometimes the old abc2ps) to generate Postscript, then Ghostscript (free) or Acrobat (expensive) to print it. I use a little print driver called "fineprint" to print in booklet format. Zina, buy the thing already! It's only $10.
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by glauber
Re: Your own compositions
The Session Ruler! That's a good name for a hornpipe, I'd think.
How about, the Godfather of The Session? Heh.
Yeah, Henrik, if you could get ABCMus to generate gifs, then you'd really have something there.
I'll pay up after Christmas -- six months of unemployment toasted our finances!
zls
# Posted on December 22nd 2001 by Zina Lee
Our Dictator
I just thought of a title for when we write Jeremy's unauthorized biography: "The Pistol And The Shamrock -- the life of a Session dictator".
I hope the title isn't taken already!
# Posted on December 25th 2001 by glauber