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Discussions => Tunes => Topic started by: Lester on October 04, 2008, 11:54:49 PM

Title: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Lester on October 04, 2008, 11:54:49 PM
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


Tune Tools

Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Robin Harrison on October 30, 2008, 07:20:05 PM
Great resouce ,Lester; lots of hard worK.Thank you Robin :-*
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Sandy on October 31, 2008, 08:49:56 AM
That's fantastic.  :)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: joe on October 31, 2008, 01:12:16 PM
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!
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Matthew B on October 31, 2008, 02:16:15 PM
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?
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Doug Anderson on October 31, 2008, 05:43:04 PM
Quote from: joe on October 31, 2008, 01:12:16 PM
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||
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: xgx on November 01, 2008, 04:33:27 PM
another link Lester:

http://www.novasession.org/Bog%20Kit/bwindex.htm
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Alison Scott on November 03, 2008, 01:06:36 AM
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.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes - Tune Tool
Post by: May on November 03, 2008, 09:27:16 AM
http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/
ABC converter for those of us using Macs
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: ERIC BONNEAU on November 05, 2008, 02:38:02 PM
I search music mélodéon irish man Peter Coulon????

Just  after John. J. kimmel  ...

Eric Bonneau 
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: finnhorse on November 11, 2008, 03:20:57 PM
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
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Susi on July 04, 2009, 05:33:48 PM
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 (http://www.organetto.info/archivio/index.php)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: HallelujahAl on July 04, 2009, 08:37:00 PM
Quote
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
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Rees on July 04, 2009, 08:42:46 PM
Quote from: Susi on July 04, 2009, 05:33:48 PM
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 (http://www.organetto.info/archivio/index.php)

Yum! great site.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: jb on August 03, 2009, 01:10:14 PM
Here are a couple of melody search sites, as posted also within another thread on this forum (http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,2125.0.html):

Tunepal (http://www.comp.dit.ie/bduggan/music/matt2/index.php)
folktunefinder.com (http://www.folktunefinder.com/)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bill the Farmer on October 28, 2009, 10:43:21 AM
The Lewes Favourites has moved again, it's now on http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html (http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html). The link in the Beginner's Guide still works, but not the one here.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Lester on October 28, 2009, 10:57:04 AM
Quote from: Bill Farmer on October 28, 2009, 10:43:21 AM
The Lewes Favourites has moved again, it's now on http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html (http://www.lewessaturdayfolkclub.org/LAFC/Lewesfav.html). The link in the Beginner's Guide still works, but not the one here.

Ta
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: flipper on November 06, 2009, 02:00:41 AM
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
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Lester on November 06, 2009, 06:25:18 AM
Quote from: flipper on November 06, 2009, 02:00:41 AM
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  :||:
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: oggiesnr on January 30, 2010, 05:23:37 PM
There are loads of ABCs on this site http://www.campin.me.uk/ (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.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Malcolm Austen on March 21, 2010, 08:13:01 AM
Chris Walshaw has just released the March 2010 edition of the tune search on his abc site here (http://abcnotation.com/search) this is really slick and returns all the tunes in a list with the start of the musical dots shown and the ability to play each tune from the list. I found it very quick and easy to use but a warning you can spend hours just comparing versions of tune, I was initially looking for Constant Billy, hours of fun.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: HallelujahAl on March 21, 2010, 08:29:06 AM
http://www.wikifonia.org/ (http://www.wikifonia.org/)
a great resource for tunes of all kinds and can be transposed online before printing off etc.
AL
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Chris Ryall on March 21, 2010, 08:40:36 AM
Terrifying!   I tried to test it with 'egb egb' start notes of our March ToTM. OK that's a common motif in Em - 859 different tunes  ???  And 'egbegb' didn't work. If you're listening Chris - fantastic work as ever. If you could get Regular Expression parsing or similar in there it would be to the good.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Alan Morley on January 06, 2011, 10:25:23 AM
Here's some more links for you to have a look at:

The Kitchen Musician :  http://www.kitchenmusician.net/pages/kmmusicalpha.html (http://www.kitchenmusician.net/pages/kmmusicalpha.html)


Nottingham Music Database :  http://abc.sourceforge.net/NMD/ (http://abc.sourceforge.net/NMD/)  or this one  http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/music/tunes/PIndexmick.peat.htm (http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/music/tunes/PIndexmick.peat.htm)

Nottingham Music Database (Midi Version)  :  http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/music/tunes/index.htm (http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~ef/music/tunes/index.htm)


Happy squeezing,

Alan
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Ziachmusi/Louise on February 27, 2011, 04:58:23 AM
Hi Lester,

two new links for your list, both for Scandinavian music:-
http://www.folkwiki.se/Kategori/Kategori (http://www.folkwiki.se/Kategori/Kategori)

http://spillefolk.dk/nodesamling/findnode.php (http://spillefolk.dk/nodesamling/findnode.php)

loads of great tune in there :||:



Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Robbie on May 13, 2011, 10:18:27 PM
Various tune sets in PDF format from the "border Box" band may be found here,

http://www.northumbrian.info/borderbox/index.htm

The site also has a history of the band and a number of photographs.

I would imagine that Theo may well have heard of them.

Cheers

Bob
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: tedrick on November 10, 2012, 04:05:35 PM
I am gathering my useful tune sites at a google site:

Reed's tune collection

at: https://sites.google.com/site/sessioncollections/ (https://sites.google.com/site/sessioncollections/)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Natalie on May 15, 2015, 10:46:43 AM
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Steve_freereeder on May 15, 2015, 11:14:06 AM
Quote from: Natalie on May 15, 2015, 10:46:43 AM
  • Traditional tunes from European countries - free sheet music (pdf + midi) (http://www.linkonardo.com/en/accordion/d5133/traditional-tunes-from-free-sheet-music.html) :)
An 'interesting' collection of tunes. ;)
Quite a lot from eastern European countries, Russia and the Middle East; but only 12 English tunes, 2 Scottish and one Welsh tune.
However, presumably by way of compensation, we have quite a smattering of tunes from an 'extended Europe' which includes the USA, South Africa, Venezuela, Mexico and even Taiwan!
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: ChrisP on May 15, 2015, 09:30:03 PM
Just found this thread. For Mostly English repertoire, what they say on the tin, really:-

http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/List_of_historical_tunebooks,_some_of_which_are_available_on_the_internet (http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/List_of_historical_tunebooks,_some_of_which_are_available_on_the_internet)

http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/Tune_Manuscripts_List (http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/Tune_Manuscripts_List)

http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/Books_published_since_about_1900_containing_mainly_tunes_from_the_English_repertoire (http://folkopedia.efdss.org/wiki/Books_published_since_about_1900_containing_mainly_tunes_from_the_English_repertoire)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: blue eyed sailor on July 03, 2015, 02:45:04 PM
Here's a new (at least to me) search engine - you can just "play" the notes on a virtual keyboard - works a treat:

http://www.kooplet.com/cgi-bin/kooplet/search.pl

Enjoy!
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Kim B on July 13, 2017, 12:44:23 AM
Here is a site that has a number of tunes in button numbers. Great info, easy read, and easy songs along with you tube links for a variety of the applicable song keys.
     
     http://www.Tunes2play4fun.com









Kim
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bob Ellis on November 25, 2018, 09:01:51 PM
As some of you will know, I am transcribing field recordings of tunes from the Yorkshire Dales and have done about 200 so far. Many of these tunes are not named on the recordings. Research on the internet often enables me to identify them, but not always, so I ask you guys on melnet - sometimes you are able to provide the names, but not always, which leads me to the point of this post.

Although there are several good websites mentioned in this thread that can help one find a tune when you already know its name, there are very few where you can type in the dots or ABC of a tune and it will tell you the name of that tune. www.folktunefinder.com is useful, but I only find the names of about half the tunes I seek when using it. There is also www.kooplet.com but it seems to be less successful in finding tunes than folktunefinder.com.

Are there any other apps or websites out there that can be used to find the name of a tune when you have its dots or ABC?

A particular problem occurs with tunes collected from the 1950s onwards, when the distinction between folk dance tunes and old time dance tunes becomes more blurred. Are there any apps out there that will search through old time tunes as well as folk dance tunes?

Any help would be much appreciated. In the meantime, if no-one minds, I'll keep posting requests on melnet to identify tunes for which I have no name.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Anahata on November 25, 2018, 10:58:27 PM
The search engine at http://abcnotation.com/search (http://abcnotation.com/search) lets you type in ABC fragments to find a tune. I've also successfully used Google to find and identify a tune by guessing at the ABC notation for part of it.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: smiley on November 26, 2018, 10:19:42 AM
hi Bob

I find http://abctunesearch.com (http://abctunesearch.com) handy, but mainly for Irish tunes.
When using http://abcnotation.com/search (http://abcnotation.com/search) the TuneGraph can sometimes give useful leads to similar melodies.

I haven't had much success using the Theme Code Index at https://www.tunearch.org/wiki/Theme_Code_Index (https://www.tunearch.org/wiki/Theme_Code_Index), but it sounds like an interesting option for searching a wide range of tunes using the intervals between successive notes.

Good luck!

Ian
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bob Ellis on November 26, 2018, 10:54:38 AM
Quote from: Anahata on November 25, 2018, 10:58:27 PM
The search engine at http://abcnotation.com/search (http://abcnotation.com/search) lets you type in ABC fragments to find a tune. I've also successfully used Google to find and identify a tune by guessing at the ABC notation for part of it.


I have tried the http://abcnotation.com/search you suggested, but without any success. It even failed to find well-known tunes such as Buttered Peas, Castles in the Air and Huntsman's Chorus. I hadn't thought of typing ABC notation into Google, but I'll try it later today.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bob Ellis on November 26, 2018, 11:06:20 AM
I've tried typing a couple of bars of several tunes into Google, but it failed to find any of them, even the well-known ones.

I'll try Smiley's suggestions next.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Tone Dumb Greg on November 26, 2018, 11:32:15 AM
John Chambers tune finder is pretty good.
This is the MIT based link (Trillian)

http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bob Ellis on November 26, 2018, 12:49:22 PM
I've tried Ian's (Smiley) suggestions. http://abctunesearch.com/ came up with a lot of suggestions, but none sounded anything like the tunes for which I was searching. I couldn't work out how to use the Theme Code Index of the Tunearch website.

I had not thought of Greg's suggestion of typing ABC notation into the trillian search engine, so I tried it. Pasting in the notation for an entire tune came up with no suggestions at all. Pasting in just a few bars of Buttered Peas came up with hundreds of suggestions, none of which was Buttered Peas!

This is proving frustratingly difficult.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Steve C. on November 26, 2018, 01:13:08 PM
Should we add the Playford Omnibus dots/ABC's here?  Great resource, I think via Pete?
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: smiley on November 26, 2018, 09:04:45 PM
Quote from: Bob Ellis on November 26, 2018, 12:49:22 PM
This is proving frustratingly difficult.

I know exactly how you feel (if that's any consolation)

The abc tunesearch (http://abcnotation.com/search) results depend on how you enter your abc search. Typing FG A2A2F2|GA found nothing useful but FG A2 A2 F2|GA found 104 hits, including Buttered Peas.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Mike Hirst on November 27, 2018, 09:16:15 AM
I first used the Gore/Breathnach Theme Code Index methods for sorting traditional tunes whilst building the FARNE archive. I was greatly impressed by the effectiveness of the printed collection We tested the book working with students from the Traditional Music degree course. As a system for cataloguing 18thC and 19thC Scottish melodies the system is flawless. The failing is that the method requires massive input to widen it's effectiveness. The efforts made by John Chambers to extract Gore/Breathnach codes form abc are laudable, but need much more work to be effective.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Bob Ellis on November 27, 2018, 09:57:46 AM
Quote from: smiley on November 26, 2018, 09:04:45 PM
Quote from: Bob Ellis on November 26, 2018, 12:49:22 PM
This is proving frustratingly difficult.

I know exactly how you feel (if that's any consolation)

The abc tunesearch (http://abcnotation.com/search) results depend on how you enter your abc search. Typing FG A2A2F2|GA found nothing useful but FG A2 A2 F2|GA found 104 hits, including Buttered Peas.

That's useful to know. Thanks, Ian.
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: ChrisP on December 24, 2018, 01:13:31 PM
Currently, and for the last few years, the Village Music Project files on the main site are out of date due to technical issues. Anahata is moving the site to a new home in the New Year and then it will be up to speed again hopefully. It will have the same url. In the meantime all the revised files and new files, and some that are not VMP files, can be found on my webpage http://www.cpartington.plus.com/Links/ChrisPartingtonsLinksPage.html (http://www.cpartington.plus.com/Links/ChrisPartingtonsLinksPage.html)
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Anahata on December 24, 2018, 02:12:29 PM
It's on its new hosting already, and has been since October 27th. Same URL, same out of date files moved unchanged from the old site.

Getting the files updated is down to John Adams. I'm willing to help, but I don't know what needs doing. I can make you a site admin, if you like...

(Edit: greengrocer's apostrophe  :|bl )
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Pete Dunk on December 24, 2018, 03:46:29 PM
Quote from: Steve C. on November 26, 2018, 01:13:08 PM
Should we add the Playford Omnibus dots/ABC's here?  Great resource, I think via Pete?

All available here (https://app.box.com/s/c7lk6p60ws7fpsx5s4kv1hn282jlkaem).  :D
Title: Re: How To Find Tunes
Post by: Gromit on December 24, 2018, 08:24:40 PM
Learn them by ear from recordings, youtube etc. works for me.