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[The Happy Wanderer]

I enjoy making up tunes, but I cannot read music well enough to write them down on paper. I know which notes I am pressing (if I think about it), but I don't know how long the notes are that I am pressing. What do you recommend I do?

[penn]

Recording them is an option. If you have smart phone they usually have some sort of voice recorder. I use an Olympus voice recorder for "work in progress".
Steve

[Sebastian]

Learn to differenciate between tunes in 3/4 (walzes) and 2/4 (polkas). Then learn to count the beats while humming or playing your tune. It is not that difficult but comes with practice.

[Pete Dunk]

^^ What Sebastion said! First you need to establish the time signature, is the pulse in 2, 3 or 4?

ONE two, ONE two. ONE two, ONE two.

ONE two three, ONE two three. ONE two three, ONE two three.

ONE two Three four, ONE two Three four. ONE two Three four, ONE two Three four.

Once you can count like this whilst you are playing the length of each note will become apparent. This is not an easy thing to do but if you are determined enough you will get there!

[brazilian.BOX]

It seems there are some softwares that do it, based on a recording that you insert or run in this software.

Another valid resource is you hire a professor, to do for you exclusively this task. A professional in music, generally can convert any melody writting it for at those musical notations.

[Boyen]

You can use a simplified notation (tabs) where the duration is indicated in another way.
I've adopted it from harmonica playing where

2 -> 2 blow (push for melodeon)
-2 -> 2 draw (pull for melodeon)
2! -> double length note
2!! -> tripple length note
^2 -> inner/outer row

Alternatively you could write it as ABC, which is pretty much the same with the added benefit that you can easily export it to sheet music if required.

http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_notation.htm

Contrary to the above, I don't think the time signature is of vital essence when transcribing as long as the music is in your head correctly.

[The Happy Wanderer]

I tried counting the beats, but it seems that when I count, I can't play any songs right. I always wind up playing notes too long, or too short, or I just press the wrong notes all together. I wonder why this is? 

[blue eyed sailor]

You could work with a metronome (in any case "your best friend", as a valued teacher uses to tell me! and you'll find him online and free of charge...), thus you'd be relieved from counting once having come at the pulse...!

Best wishes - Wolf

[arty]

I tried counting the beats, but it seems that when I count, I can't play any songs right. I always wind up playing notes too long, or too short, or I just press the wrong notes all together. I wonder why this is? 

It's because you are a man Happy, only women can do two things at once ha, ha 

I would suggest you go on to You Tube and listen to some recordings that you have already made and try tapping your feet to the music. When you've done that, try counting the beats out loud, while you are listening to the music. Then move on and do the same when you are playing your instrument, slowly at first and then build up the speed. You'll get there - one step at a time.

[Sebastian]

I wonder why this is? 

Maybe to protect you against Madame Superbia.

(Ah, I see Arty answered while I was writing. In short: What Arty sayeth.)

Long: You could try to listen to one of your vids, e. g. https://youtu.be/5lcF8_8fCF4. You play a left-hand pattern: bass-chord-chord. This corresponds to 1-2-3. On the right-hand side you play the melody. The first three notes are each as long as 1-2-3, so every one of them fills a complete measure (can be notated as a dotted minim or, older custom, as a semibreve). The fifth note has a duration of only 1-2, so it is a minim or half note. The next note has only the duration of 3, so it's a crotchet or quarter note. With that the measure is full and you can go to the next measure. It has an identical structure. And so on.

In this video https://youtu.be/FHgqVqi4ksQ you start with some RH notes before you start the LH pattern. I don't know how this is called in English. I think the length of these three notes together is one beat, so they should be notated as triplet of quavers, than the bar line, thant the first full measure.

[The Happy Wanderer]

How would a tune be counted if it has notes quicker than 1-2-3-4-etc.?

This tune seems to have notes which are between the numbers. As this tune is a polka, would it be counted 1-2-3-4, or 1-2?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNDvP4LifY

[blue eyed sailor]

How would a tune be counted if it has notes quicker than 1-2-3-4-etc.?

This tune seems to have notes which are between the numbers. As this tune is a polka, would it be counted 1-2-3-4, or 1-2?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNDvP4LifY

A polka would be counted 1-2 (as it's in 2/4) but may be built mainly from quavers / eigth notes, which make up for 1-and-2-and (however, if you'd count the quavers, it would be 1-2-3-4). In addition to that there may be semi quavers / sixteenth notes, which would than last half as long... (and as well dotted quavers, which would have one note of three-semiquavers length and one semi-quaver note, or similar).

Dots would explain this much easier I'd guess...

So here's a link to one of my favourites: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/favtunesw/005413.HTM

Best wishes - Wolf

[deltasalmon]

How would a tune be counted if it has notes quicker than 1-2-3-4-etc.?

"1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a" is one way people count the notes in between beats. I would learn about time signature, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

When I try to figure out the rhythm of a tune, I can't count by playing but if I sing along and tap my hand on a table to keep the beat I can get the fractions of a beat or off-beats more easily. Learning ABC is a good idea too because if you can transcribe it to ABC even if just doing the rhythm you can then use software that can play it back to see if what you wrote down matches what you meant to write down.

[brazilian.BOX]

Learn how to write the music, I believe it's a great great project-ocupation for anyone that has any basic level in a musical instrument. In a beginning it's an activity that makes you think a lot and requires a lot from your mind and brain.

I had some classes when younger, and was that kind of activity that you leave the classes with the mind heavy you know? Felling that you've just required a lot lot lot of your mind, like you are tired because so much you thought. Like that sensations I believe everything had when finished a great and long chess match! 

Such work with your brains, (activities that requires a lot of your brain) the doctors use to tell that it has a great availability to prevent degenerative diseases that works exactly directly on your brain like alzheimer and parkinson. So, that's here a great inversion you could do eventually in your musical schedules obviously, but also maybe your health and longevity.

Another friend of mind that already can read and write music very well, he uses to tell me that it is like SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE... he tells that this language of the musical notations, it is like a particular language... and he uses to joke: "and as it has another signals, characters, so it is like you speak a kind of arabic, russia or japanese...

And it makes me remember also the doctors again, because I already read about it... about STUDY A LANGUAGE is another kind of work that also requires a lot from your brain, and it so helps also to prevent such degenerative diseases. And remember also an article that was commenting: "specially languages with another alphabets, alphabets totally different for you... like japanese, chinese, arabic..."


So that's a kind of particular meaning I believe we can find in this activity about read music or start the great project towards read and write music fluently. It would be like dedicate yourself to start the studies of a very complicated language... arabic... chinese as told. I really intend to have it fluently ahead in my life!

 

[Theo]

How would a tune be counted if it has notes quicker than 1-2-3-4-etc.?

This tune seems to have notes which are between the numbers. As this tune is a polka, would it be counted 1-2-3-4, or 1-2?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNDvP4LifY

Listen to the bass drum, its playing a simple 1 2, 1 2, most of the time.

[Pete Dunk]

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[brazilian.BOX]

Free today on Amazon.com!

Music theory Kindle book

Amazon UK free Kindle book

Greaaat tip!  Thanks!   

[Sebastian]

Yes, all good advice, I think.

The Clarinet Polka is a good example, because a quick Google Image search reveals many scores, e. g. this.

Polkas are traditionally notated in 2/4. (But they could also be notated in 4/4. It's only tradition. Musically there would be no perceptible difference.) The most often used note lengths in the notation of polka melodies are quavers/eighth notes and the more rapid semiquavers/sixteenth notes. If you make up polka melodies yourself you probably will use mostly these two note lengths when writing them down.

Edit: And I really enjoy this polish-usonian polka musik with Chemnitzer concertina and clarinet as lead instruments. To me it's a strange mix of exotic and domestic sounds.

[The Happy Wanderer]

I got EasyABC, and I tried my best to write down the tune I made up. I did some counting when figuring out what notes to write, and their length. This seemed to work quite well. What do you think?

Forest Path Waltz

Code: [Select]

X:1
T:Forest Path Waltz
M:3/4
L:1/4
C:J.S.
K:F
f e d | c2 f | e d ^c | c3 | e d ^c | c2 e | f e d | c3 | f e d | c2 f | e d ^c | c3 |1  e d ^c | c d e | f3 | c3 
:|2 c2 ^c | d2 e | f3 || A2 c | f2 c | e2 d | d3 | G2 _B | e2 d | d2 c | c3 | A2 c | a2 f | e2 d |d2 c | e d c | _B A G | F3 |]

[Steve_freereeder]

It looks and sounds pretty good! 

A couple of comments:

1. It's worth putting line breaks (return key) in the ABC code, to help split up the music lines into convenient chunks. In this instance I would recommend making the breaks to coincide with the 8-bar phrase lengths of the tune.

2. To keep the phrase lengths balanced you really need to have an additional bar in your 2nd-time bar; at the moment it's too short. (But perhaps that's how you really want it?). However, my recommendation would be to add an extra F dotted minim tied to the previous bar (see red text in my edit of your ABC.)

3. In the 'B'-music, you don't really need to specify the B-flats (which I've shown in purple underscore _B), as the flat is already specified in the key signature of F major, and the flat symbol appears at the start of every line. It is understood that all the B notes are flat, unless you make them different (e.g. by adding a natural sign - but that doesn't apply in this case.).

Nice tune - well done!

X:1
T:Forest Path Waltz
M:3/4
L:1/4
C:J.S.
K:F
P:A
f e d | c2 f | e d ^c | c3 | e d ^c | c2 e | f e d | c3 |
f e d | c2 f | e d ^c | c3 |1  e d ^c | c d e | f3 | c3  :|2 c2 ^c | d2 e | f3- | f3 ||
P:B
A2 c | f2 c | e2 d | d3 | G2 _B | e2 d | d2 c | c3 |
A2 c | a2 f | e2 d |d2 c | e d c | _B A G | F3 |]