How To Find Tunes

[Lester]

How to Find Tunes

Collection of the knowledge on MelNet on how to find tunes. Each source list the format available at the site. At the bottom of the list are a number of on-line tools for converting ABCs to manuscript or midi and for changing keys.

Please send any additions/corrections to Lester by PM.

Tune Collections

• JCs Tune Finder ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  John Chamber’s Tune Finder is probably the biggest ABC tune site on the web.
  LINK
• The Session ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  The Session is a major source for Irish tunes
  LINK
• Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes ABC
  A collection of Irish and Swedish tunes
  LINK
• Concertina.net ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  Eclectic collection of tunes
  LINK
• Lewes Favourites ABC - Noteworthy
  Collection of mostly English Tunes
  LINK
• Celtic Tunes ABC - Manuscript
  Collection of mostly Celtic Tunes
  LINK
• Nigel Gatherer’s Collection ABC
  Tunes from Scotland, Ireland, Shetland, America
  LINK
• Lionel Bacon’s Handbook of Morris Dancing ABC
  The Morris Ring’s tune bible
  LINK
• Lester’s Morris Tunes mp3
  Some 50 odd morris tunes by yours truly
  LINK
• The Contemplator MIDI
  Lesley Nelson-Burns Tunes and Songs from Scotland, Ireland, Shetland, America
  LINK
• Mudcat MIDIs MIDI
  Various MIDIs from the Mudcat Cafe
  LINK
• A Traditional Music Library Manuscript - Midi
  Large and eclectic collection of tunes and songs
  LINK
• Village Music Project Manuscript
  Transcribed versions of old manuscripts
  LINK
• Diatonia.net Manuscript – Midi - TablEdit
  Italian site where the tunes are arranged by type (Bourree, Couranta etc)
  LINK
• The Fiddler's Companion ABC
  The Fiddler's Companion but many tunes are not in melodeon friendly keys
  LINK
• Google Images Manuscript
  Lucky Dip for finding images of tunes, enter the tune name and hope
  LINK

Tune Tools

• Convert-a-matic
  On-line ABC converter outputs in MIDI and manuscript (pdf)
  LINK
• Chords Out
  Really useful tool to remove chords from ABC
  LINK
• Key Changer
  On-line key changing programme – paste in the ABC and set number of semitone to go up or down and press Submit. Also has handy little calculator to tell you how many semitones there are between Eb and C#
  LINK
• MIDI to ABC
  Tool to convert MIDIs to ABC
  LINK

[Robin Harrison]

Great resouce ,Lester; lots of hard worK.Thank you Robin

[sandy]

That's fantastic.  :)

[joe]

I have been using Concertina.net Tune-o-Tron lately. Its good! Nce clear PDFs and a midi version (although I have found that this plays what is literally on the dots - eg. if it displays A part, with alt. endings 1 and 2 it will play through the A part then alt1 then alt 2 without going back through the A part to get to alt 2. Other than that a good resource!

[Matthew B]

Thanks Lester,

This will save me a significant amount of aimless puttering.  Perhaps it could be linked from or located on the front page also?

[Doug Anderson]

I have been using Concertina.net Tune-o-Tron lately. Its good! Nce clear PDFs and a midi version (although I have found that this plays what is literally on the dots - eg. if it displays A part, with alt. endings 1 and 2 it will play through the A part then alt1 then alt 2 without going back through the A part to get to alt 2. Other than that a good resource!

That's hasn't been my experience. Here's a file that plays the alternative endings properly for me.

X:1
T:Amelia (in D)
C:Bob McQuillan
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:D
A, || "D" D>ED | DF>E | "D" DF "G" B | "D" A2A |
"G" B>GB | "D" AFE | "Bm" DB,>B, | "G" B,2 "A7" A, |
"D" D>ED | DF>E | "D" DF "G" B | "D" A2A |
"G" B>cd | "Em" def | "A7" e>cB |[1A2A,:|[2A2a||
"D" fa>f | afd | "A" e>cA | A2f/e/ |
"Bm" d>Bd | fdB | "F#m" c>AF | F2A |
"G" GB>G | "D" FAd | "A7" e>cA | "D" d2f |
"G" g>fe | "D" af "Bm" d | "G" de> "A7" c |[1 "D" d2a :|[2 "D" d3||

[xgx]

another link Lester:

http://www.novasession.org/Bog%20Kit/bwindex.htm

[Alison Scott]

Lester

This is great. Have you seen the Sheffield Ceilidh Society -- http://www.ceilidhsoc.org/music.html ?

I really like it because it makes sweet little PDF tunebooks to order, showing both the full tunes and an index with a few bars as an aide memoire (I reduce that in size to A5, and then the index prints out small enough to stick in my Moleskine manuscript book). So it's very good for the abc-challenged, although it has abc as well.

[May]

http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/
ABC converter for those of us using Macs

[ERIC BONNEAU]

I search music mélodéon irish man Peter Coulon?

Just  after John. J. kimmel  ...

Eric Bonneau 

[finnhorse]

Similar to Lester's link to the ABC key-changing utility.  This does the same thing, but I thought I would post it here because it's always good to have a backup!  No calculator, though so you'll have to be (just remotely) familiar with semitones, or otherwise bang it out and experiment until you get the key where you want it.  The webmaster also posted some links, and some of his own tunes, which are very nice.

Rats, I forgot to add the link:
http://www.8ung.at/abctransposer/index.html

[Susi]

There is a new excellent tune collection made by the creators of Accademia del mantice; it's a collection of tunes from most if not all known squeezebox and other folk tune collections. Don't be scared that the site is in Italian, the search functions are in English.

http://www.organetto.info/archivio/index.php

[HallelujahAl]

There is a new excellent tune collection made by the creators of Accademia del mantice; it's a collection of tunes from most if not all known squeezebox and other folk tune collections. Don't be scared that the site is in Italian, the search functions are in English.

http://www.organetto.info/archivio/index.php

It's great! Thanks Suzi
AL

[Rees]

There is a new excellent tune collection made by the creators of Accademia del mantice; it's a collection of tunes from most if not all known squeezebox and other folk tune collections. Don't be scared that the site is in Italian, the search functions are in English.

http://www.organetto.info/archivio/index.php

Yum! great site.

[jb]

Here are a couple of melody search sites, as posted also within another thread on this forum:

Tunepal
folktunefinder.com

[Bill the Farmer]

The Lewes Favourites has moved again, it's now on http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html. The link in the Beginner's Guide still works, but not the one here.

[Lester]

The Lewes Favourites has moved again, it's now on http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html. The link in the Beginner's Guide still works, but not the one here.

Ta

[flipper]

the best site I have found is called folktunefinder Its a brilliant site in which you can find just about any tune that you are looking for and lots that you didn't know that you were. It can provide music in midi and manuscript and has keyboard on which you can type the first 3 notes and then search for that tune, or enter a title it has a store of thousands of tunes and if you miss spell the title you don't know what little gem you are going to find.  If you find the site try the tune Skovblomster which is Danish and my favourite of the moment (sorry D/G its in Am)  but sits beautifully on the B/C
Enjoy
Sue

[Lester]

the best site I have found is called folktunefinder Its a brilliant site in which you can find just about any tune that you are looking for and lots that you didn't know that you were. It can provide music in midi and manuscript and has keyboard on which you can type the first 3 notes and then search for that tune, or enter a title it has a store of thousands of tunes and if you miss spell the title you don't know what little gem you are going to find.  If you find the site try the tune Skovblomster which is Danish and my favourite of the moment (sorry D/G its in Am)  but sits beautifully on the B/C
Enjoy
Sue

Thanks for this Sue, I will be revising the first ppst soon (honestly) to add all the suggestions including this.

ps

Amin is really easy on a D/G 

[oggiesnr]

There are loads of ABCs on this site http://www.campin.me.uk/ Many of them historical including over a thousand from the James Aird collections.

Great fun but a huge timewaster 

Steve

PS There's a lot of other stuff there as well which is worth a look.