Well, you all know me as a "dots merchant" don't you? Well tonight, for the first time ever, I've learned a tune by ear. OK, so its only a slow air, but its a start.
You also know that I'm useless with ABC notation - never tried with it to be honest and don't understand it. In learning this tune however, I've written the notes out.
Your homework then.
1/ Whats the title? - I don't know it
2/ Do my notes make any sense? can you pick the tune out from them and are they right? - even if not written in the correct "standard"? - oh, its in "G" if that helps.
Here are my jottings - lowercase = low octave, upper case = high octave.
fgaDDEFa fgaabagfed fgaDDEFa fabDcba
fga aabcDDEFDaabagfed fgaFEFDEFafagfefd
Seriously, your input would help me, I'm just starting out with these 2 aspects of ITM.
Congratulations on your breakthrough! It will get easier and easier.
Giving the key is a good first clue for the tune. But your upper case/lower case notation is the reverse of standard ABC. Lower case is used for the higher octave and upper case for the lower octave.
Time signature would be another useful thing to note.
Then you just need to put in bar lines and mark which notes are longer and your are off into standard ABC.
abcs are much less whimsical than standard notation. Take a tune you already know and read the abcs for it. Soon all will make sense. Use the above abc tutorial for answers to any questions.
Congrats on finally learning a tune by ear, now keep doing it! Don't stop! The more you do it, the easier it gets, and a richer world of music will open to you.
I did'nt give much in the way of clues to see if anyone could pick it out from my list of notes. But no, its not TLB.. I don't know if the tune is on here, because I don't know the title.
I don't want to make your homework to easy. More clues later I promise.
I don't have any playing knowledge of TLB but I don't think it starts fgaDDEFa, or FGAddefA as I gather I should have written it.
I too have never got my head round ABC, and I've just had a look at that guide. I cannot for the life of me see what benefits it offers over standard notation. I can't see that it is any more capable of expressing idiom and I can't see how it can be half as quick to read. O.K. practice will help, but this seems a far more inefficient way of notating music than standard notation, and I fail to see why it is any more acceptable in trad music than dots.
I can semi-sight-read a new tune from dots and be up and running with it in about two to five minutes; the simpler tunes I can play at speed pretty nuch on first take; O.K. then developing it into a full idiomatic rendition will take much longer, but that's true of any sort of music. After a while, reading dots is little different from reading alpahbet. Practice notwithstanding, it seems to me that ABC is a far less efficient way of conveying the 'necessary information' than standard notation, and will therefore will require more thinking time.
Even for those starting out, who don't (yet) read dots, this seems like a false friend in terms of musical ability.
I can't see how ABC helps anything at all - except perhaps some people's apparent wish to have as little association with conventional musical technique as possible.
Dots are the same as ABC, in effect. They're notation. I use the term 'dots' to cover both staff notation and ABC. They are not bad in themselves. In fact, they're good. I think the confusion comes about because people assume that people (like me) who think it's best to learn this music by ear, rather than by dots, are antipathetic to dots per se, which we're not. How can you be? It's a useful skill to have. Similarly, it's very useful to have the skill to read and write in ABC notation. It takes a few hours only to get all the skils you'll ever need in ABC, at least as regards this music. So, my advice would be, if you haven't got them, get them.
It's to do with the fact that ABC has a small file size just like as text files are. Not so important in these days of fast broadband but thats where it came from.
Also the ability to cut and past to e-mails or any other form of easy to use media makes it quite handy. So no need for swapping graphic files or pdf's etc can even be sent by text message to a phone and away you go. A good format.
I don't read them either, can't be arsed really but I do have a wee program that can convert them into dots if I want them. Had a look at the guide and it seems simple enough, perhaps I should make an effort.
Now those answers make sense - I had forgotten the computing side of things. Point fully taken.
I have used ABC in a converter when I couldn't find stave-written versions - but I'm not sure I would want to read a tune directly from the ABC.
EB - I certainly don't disagree with learning by ear - I do it too where possible - but perhaps it's a bit less significant if you play non-trad intruments like the mando where interpretation and ornamentation is always going to be rather more of a compromise anyway? That rendition of Sliabh Russel that people seemed to like came straight off dots and onto disc in about half an hour. I only heard the tune live for the first time yesterday evening...
Another interesting 'evolution' of the oral tradition?
@mandolinist
"no one has ever taught me to read abc's"
It is unlikely that anyone ever will. It isn't rocket science -- if it says 'A' you play an 'A'.
I don't want to get into yet another 'dots vs ear' argument here. I was just trying to explain that the view that many around here take - including me - that ear is best for learning this music, does not by any stretch of the imagination represent "antipathy to dots".
No, not more dots Vs ear please. Thats not my point this time. I'm trying out the other recommended methods - ear and ABC. Why settle for one gun in your arsenal when you can have a battery ?
Can anyone give me a title yet ?, or tell me if my ear was working correctly ?
I think you need to work on your ABC notation skills in order for it to make enough sense for people to identify it. I'm pretty pish at reading ABC but I can get a sense of things if they are more or less formatted properly. Yours just doesn't make sense at all.
that's the point, Orme. I can't because I don't read abc and I can't use a converter on it because your abc is (apparently) upside down in a way that would not happen with dots... If you had given the me dots I might have had a fighting chance - but then your OP would have had no point
Ear - excellent *in ideal circumstances* for picking up the tunes as they should be.
Dots - excellent when circumstances are *not* ideal. IMO not as hard to learn as people seem to say, and an efficient means of recording/transmitting musical information - which is why it has endured.
To be correct, there's what's generally taken as ABC when the term is used, that the one for computers. And there's the usual shorthand Irish musicians have been using for a long time. They're different though, even if they are both referred to as 'ABC'.
Yes, I suppose so. I normally think of the ASCII version as just being one that was refined to make it compatible with computer use. Just a subset, in other words. Back to whether one's a 'lumper' or a 'splitter' I suppose ...
I'm in a similar situation where I have learned a slide by ear, don't have the music, don't know that ABC well enough to search and find the name... Have tried to use the tutorial and all goes well with understanding the note names/octaves, etc.. and I think I am even ok with the overall time signature - but the duration thing loses me.... So much to learn. Guess it will continue to be named "the slide I know" for now.
Thanks to those who have posted the links and helpful hints and to ornepipes for starting the thread.
To the ABC-impaired who can read dots - Forget the tutorial. Open up the ABC of a tune you know in one window, and the sheet music in another window, and figure out how things correspond. For instance, ormepipes, you have The Blarney Pilgrim in your tunebook, so let's look at how it's notated, after the headers:
First line:
|:DED DEG| A2A ABc| BAG AGE| GEA GED|
The letters mean what they say they mean - as gam says, "if it says 'A' you play an 'A". Capital letters are lower than lowercase letters - you seem to have figured this out. First bar has you play DED DEG. Looking at the sheet music, or relying on your knowledge of the tune, you can deduce that those D's, E's, and G's are the lowest ones on your pipes.
Second bar. A2A ABc. Uh-ok, what's that 2 after the A? Again, go back to the sheet music or your memory. Looks likein the sheet music, that A2 is a quarter note, and the others are eighth notes. That 2 seems to mean "twice as long" as the other notes so far. (The L:1/8 in the header means that the "base" note is an eighth note.)
etc etc.
A few other things to notice:
1. There's a vertical bar after every group of 6 notes. That's because this is a jig and there are six eighth notes in each bar.
2. The notes themselves come in clumps of 3. Same as dots - each bar in a jig is split up into two halves, with half the length of the bar in each - 3 eighth notes.
Figuring out how 1. and 2. differ for reels is left as an exercise to the reader. Ormepipes, use your space bar and | key judiciously and you can get your mystery tune in a form that can be parsed by ABC readers, and search engines.
Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Well, you all know me as a "dots merchant" don't you? Well tonight, for the first time ever, I've learned a tune by ear. OK, so its only a slow air, but its a start.
You also know that I'm useless with ABC notation - never tried with it to be honest and don't understand it. In learning this tune however, I've written the notes out.
Your homework then.
1/ Whats the title? - I don't know it
2/ Do my notes make any sense? can you pick the tune out from them and are they right? - even if not written in the correct "standard"? - oh, its in "G" if that helps.
Here are my jottings - lowercase = low octave, upper case = high octave.
fgaDDEFa fgaabagfed fgaDDEFa fabDcba
fga aabcDDEFDaabagfed fgaFEFDEFafagfefd
Seriously, your input would help me, I'm just starting out with these 2 aspects of ITM.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Congratulations on your breakthrough! It will get easier and easier.
Giving the key is a good first clue for the tune. But your upper case/lower case notation is the reverse of standard ABC. Lower case is used for the higher octave and upper case for the lower octave.
Time signature would be another useful thing to note.
Then you just need to put in bar lines and mark which notes are longer and your are off into standard ABC.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by adam b
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
My dog ate my homework.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by zippydw
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
If that tune's in G I'm a Dutchman.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
ethical,
Goeiendag
Sorry, it may not be in "G" - but the "C"'s are natural.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Sorry again !! - and the "F"'s are sharp.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
ormepipes, here's your homework: http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_notation.htm
abcs are much less whimsical than standard notation. Take a tune you already know and read the abcs for it. Soon all will make sense. Use the above abc tutorial for answers to any questions.
Congrats on finally learning a tune by ear, now keep doing it! Don't stop! The more you do it, the easier it gets, and a richer world of music will open to you.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I hate it when someone else is helpful before I am.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
i love it when you all fight over being helpful
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by full measure
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
This lot would fight at the drop of a hat!
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Well, slow airs are not listed here in the tunes index, so we're still all at sea.
Where did you hear it ?
It's not The Lonesome Boatman, is it ?
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Pete,
I did'nt give much in the way of clues to see if anyone could pick it out from my list of notes. But no, its not TLB.. I don't know if the tune is on here, because I don't know the title.
I don't want to make your homework to easy. More clues later I promise.
I don't have any playing knowledge of TLB but I don't think it starts fgaDDEFa, or FGAddefA as I gather I should have written it.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Just out of curiosity, how does one read abc's. I can learn by ear or dots but no one has ever taught me to read abc's
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by mandolinist
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
mandolinist, check out the abc tutorial link I posted above
(here again: http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_notation.htm)
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I'm puzzled. (WARNING: controversial comment coming up...)
I too have never got my head round ABC, and I've just had a look at that guide. I cannot for the life of me see what benefits it offers over standard notation. I can't see that it is any more capable of expressing idiom and I can't see how it can be half as quick to read. O.K. practice will help, but this seems a far more inefficient way of notating music than standard notation, and I fail to see why it is any more acceptable in trad music than dots.
I can semi-sight-read a new tune from dots and be up and running with it in about two to five minutes; the simpler tunes I can play at speed pretty nuch on first take; O.K. then developing it into a full idiomatic rendition will take much longer, but that's true of any sort of music. After a while, reading dots is little different from reading alpahbet. Practice notwithstanding, it seems to me that ABC is a far less efficient way of conveying the 'necessary information' than standard notation, and will therefore will require more thinking time.
Even for those starting out, who don't (yet) read dots, this seems like a false friend in terms of musical ability.
I can't see how ABC helps anything at all - except perhaps some people's apparent wish to have as little association with conventional musical technique as possible.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
p.s. I'm not saying people shouldn't use ABC - just that I don't see that it offers any advantage. So why the antipathy to dots if ABC is O.K.?
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Dots are the same as ABC, in effect. They're notation. I use the term 'dots' to cover both staff notation and ABC. They are not bad in themselves. In fact, they're good. I think the confusion comes about because people assume that people (like me) who think it's best to learn this music by ear, rather than by dots, are antipathetic to dots per se, which we're not. How can you be? It's a useful skill to have. Similarly, it's very useful to have the skill to read and write in ABC notation. It takes a few hours only to get all the skils you'll ever need in ABC, at least as regards this music. So, my advice would be, if you haven't got them, get them.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
The point of ABC is that you can write it on a computer. It's easy to write on a keyboard and software, like Jeremy's, can make it into notation.
If you can't read ABC, there's websites like this which convert properly formatted ABCs to sheet music: http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
It's to do with the fact that ABC has a small file size just like as text files are. Not so important in these days of fast broadband but thats where it came from.
Also the ability to cut and past to e-mails or any other form of easy to use media makes it quite handy. So no need for swapping graphic files or pdf's etc can even be sent by text message to a phone and away you go. A good format.
I don't read them either, can't be arsed really but I do have a wee program that can convert them into dots if I want them. Had a look at the guide and it seems simple enough, perhaps I should make an effort.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
ABCs are also a good notation for beer mats in my experience.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Now those answers make sense - I had forgotten the computing side of things. Point fully taken.
I have used ABC in a converter when I couldn't find stave-written versions - but I'm not sure I would want to read a tune directly from the ABC.
EB - I certainly don't disagree with learning by ear - I do it too where possible - but perhaps it's a bit less significant if you play non-trad intruments like the mando where interpretation and ornamentation is always going to be rather more of a compromise anyway? That rendition of Sliabh Russel that people seemed to like came straight off dots and onto disc in about half an hour. I only heard the tune live for the first time yesterday evening...
Another interesting 'evolution' of the oral tradition?
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
@mandolinist
"no one has ever taught me to read abc's"
It is unlikely that anyone ever will. It isn't rocket science -- if it says 'A' you play an 'A'.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by gam
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I don't want to get into yet another 'dots vs ear' argument here. I was just trying to explain that the view that many around here take - including me - that ear is best for learning this music, does not by any stretch of the imagination represent "antipathy to dots".
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
That last post of mine is cr*p. I tried to write what I mean, but the grammar is rubbish. I hope it's clear what I meant ...
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
another 'dots vs ear' argument here
Me neither. It is (clear).
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
No, not more dots Vs ear please. Thats not my point this time. I'm trying out the other recommended methods - ear and ABC. Why settle for one gun in your arsenal when you can have a battery ?
Can anyone give me a title yet ?, or tell me if my ear was working correctly ?
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I think you need to work on your ABC notation skills in order for it to make enough sense for people to identify it. I'm pretty pish at reading ABC but I can get a sense of things if they are more or less formatted properly. Yours just doesn't make sense at all.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
>>Can anyone give me a title yet ?,
that's the point, Orme. I can't because I don't read abc and I can't use a converter on it because your abc is (apparently) upside down in a way that would not happen with dots... If you had given the me dots I might have had a fighting chance - but then your OP would have had no point
Ear - excellent *in ideal circumstances* for picking up the tunes as they should be.
Dots - excellent when circumstances are *not* ideal. IMO not as hard to learn as people seem to say, and an efficient means of recording/transmitting musical information - which is why it has endured.
abc - a useful shorthand for computer use.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ian stock
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
ABC notation isn't just for computer use. It was invented long before computers were invented.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
To be correct, there's what's generally taken as ABC when the term is used, that the one for computers. And there's the usual shorthand Irish musicians have been using for a long time. They're different though, even if they are both referred to as 'ABC'.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Yes, I suppose so. I normally think of the ASCII version as just being one that was refined to make it compatible with computer use. Just a subset, in other words. Back to whether one's a 'lumper' or a 'splitter' I suppose ...
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
Thanks for being constructive SS,
Let me get it the right way around for a start
FGAddefA FGAABAGFED FGAddefA FABdCBA
FGA AABCddefdAABAGFED FGAfefdefAFADFEFD
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
sorry,
last clump of letters should be
FGAfefdefAFAGFEFD
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
It starts off like an air on Chieftains 1. A track that is not on the database here...
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by David50
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I think I've tortured you all enough - It's from "The Chieftains, A Celebration". Its in the middle of their Coolin Medley.
Now, would some kind soul check my ears were working and that I have the right notes?
Help with title would also be appreciated, Its not The Coolin.
If I'm wrong, you can let all the world know on here - I'm not scared (much!!!)
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
I'm in a similar situation where I have learned a slide by ear, don't have the music, don't know that ABC well enough to search and find the name... Have tried to use the tutorial and all goes well with understanding the note names/octaves, etc.. and I think I am even ok with the overall time signature - but the duration thing loses me.... So much to learn. Guess it will continue to be named "the slide I know" for now.
Thanks to those who have posted the links and helpful hints and to ornepipes for starting the thread.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by frauschmittle
Re: Your Homework - its a miracle !!
To the ABC-impaired who can read dots - Forget the tutorial. Open up the ABC of a tune you know in one window, and the sheet music in another window, and figure out how things correspond. For instance, ormepipes, you have The Blarney Pilgrim in your tunebook, so let's look at how it's notated, after the headers:
First line:
|:DED DEG| A2A ABc| BAG AGE| GEA GED|
The letters mean what they say they mean - as gam says, "if it says 'A' you play an 'A". Capital letters are lower than lowercase letters - you seem to have figured this out. First bar has you play DED DEG. Looking at the sheet music, or relying on your knowledge of the tune, you can deduce that those D's, E's, and G's are the lowest ones on your pipes.
Second bar. A2A ABc. Uh-ok, what's that 2 after the A? Again, go back to the sheet music or your memory. Looks likein the sheet music, that A2 is a quarter note, and the others are eighth notes. That 2 seems to mean "twice as long" as the other notes so far. (The L:1/8 in the header means that the "base" note is an eighth note.)
etc etc.
A few other things to notice:
1. There's a vertical bar after every group of 6 notes. That's because this is a jig and there are six eighth notes in each bar.
2. The notes themselves come in clumps of 3. Same as dots - each bar in a jig is split up into two halves, with half the length of the bar in each - 3 eighth notes.
Figuring out how 1. and 2. differ for reels is left as an exercise to the reader. Ormepipes, use your space bar and | key judiciously and you can get your mystery tune in a form that can be parsed by ABC readers, and search engines.
# Posted on January 15th 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious