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Author Topic: Triple time hornpipe chord playing  (Read 7128 times)

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Hugh Taylor

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Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« on: September 14, 2018, 09:33:55 AM »

I may have asked this before, but I've forgotten the answer. My ABCexplorer 1.6.1 doesn't play chords for a triple time hornpipe - M:3/2. Is there any way round this?
Thanks
Hugh
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2018, 11:48:14 AM »

There is but I'll have to look it up and get back to you.
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2018, 12:55:13 PM »

This is related to abc2midi. You may need to add:

Code: [Select]
(your tune name etc definition probably, but specifically the time signature must be declared)
%%MIDI gchord (string)
(your tune needs to be afterwards)

To get it to work. You can read a bit more about it here: https://ifdo.ca/~seymour/runabc/abcguide/abc2midi_body.html#gchord

This string can be used any time you need something other than the default, which in this case may be nothing as abc2midi may not have an existing definition for this time signature.

In order to experiment locally, I grabbed this tune from folk tune finder: https://www.folktunefinder.com/tunes/3739 because it is in 3/2 and has noted chords. Sure enough, in EasyABC on my macbook, it doesn't play chords, which is what I would expect as both pieces of software use abc2midi to make the soundy part of the experience. Adding the string such that it reads:

Code: [Select]
...
M: 3/2
%%MIDI gchord fcfcfc
L: 1/8
...

Worked for me. That will give you 3x oom pahs per bar - not sure what is appropriate though. Take heed of the linked notes on adfo.ca, as you want to make sure that this string adds up to something that ends up make sense as you can quickly develop some unusual polyrhythms.
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Roger Hare

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2018, 02:46:14 PM »

...
Code: [Select]
...
M: 3/2
%%MIDI gchord fcfcfc
L: 1/8
...
...

This stuff does my head in and arises because (if I have understood correctly), abc2midi only has gchord templates for
'common' time signatures. I've been trying to get 3/2 sorted out for a while (via EasyABC). Thank you.

Aside: According to Wikipedia, "A piece in 3/4 can be easily rewritten in 3/8, simply by halving the length of the notes."

By analogy, it should also be true that "A piece in 3/2 can be easily rewritten in 3/4, simply by halving the length of the notes."

3/4 is one of the time signatures for which there is a built-in gchord template.

So, (putting on his 'musical ignoramus' hat), he asks is there anything 'wrong' with doing just that - converting the tune to 3/4,
or does doing this in some way destroy the '3/2-ness' of the tune?

Roger
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 02:48:55 PM by lachenal74693 »
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2018, 03:48:32 PM »

So, the computer doesn't really mind how you write it. But, if you rewrite your tune as 3/4, it's going to give you that waltz 'fundamental chord chord' pattern, because that's what something somewhere in its configuration tells it to do - time signatures are largely ornamental but we use them to try and say what kind of tune we're writing down, when they don't really mean that at all. Maybe that pattern is right though? I actually have no familiarity with what a 3/2 tune would be expected to be like.

If listening to the chords is important to you, as it is to me, I'd suggest familiarising yourself with use of lowercase chord letters and the %%gchord commands as I've found them super important for ABC - so far as I can tell, %%gchord off is the only way to have it stop playing chords. It also lets you put in some of the more unusual chord patterns we box players like to play, but, you can't have it play the fundamental and chord at the same time. (ie block chords)

I don't know if you can really blame abc2midi for not including a chord profile for your chosen time signature, as sometimes there aren't clear answers - the software is likely used for a large number of things, and changing behaviour away from how it has worked when there isn't a clear pass/fail analysis can be difficult. Being open source software, often these programs are being maintained by someone far removed from the original author. One issue you're seeing is that the whole pipeline of you using ABC is actually all these different pieces of software and it's not clear which one you need help with. Was it your ABC editor? Was it the ABC standard itself? There are lots of usability headaches pretty much everywhere and there is little transparency in exactly which thing is doing what most of the time, as much of it is automated by the editor.
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2018, 04:19:57 PM »

I actually have no familiarity with what a 3/2 tune would be expected to be like.

It's a triple hornpipe, once very popular but now they are not so common. Here's a good example, The Old Lancashire Hornpipe, played by Andy Shear of this parish.
Still looking for a 3/2 example but here's an abc in odd meter that should play back with most abc software.

X:1
T:Five Dollar Jig
C:Eric Conrad
%%abc-copyright (C) Copyright Eric Conrad 2018
% This tune illustrates some techniques for guitar chording in ABC notation
M:5/8   % abcm2ps needs help to accompany quintuple time
L:1/8
%%MIDI program 40 % fiddle
%%MIDI chordprog 105 % banjo
Q:1/8=220
P:I(AB)3
K:Edor
% Simple i-IV-v-i Doriam mode progression
% Chords and relatives: i=Em (III=G); IV=A (ii=F#m); v=Bm (VII=D); [vi0=C#dim]
%%text E Dorian
% Play with the next four lines (comment out/modify) to see how things work
%%MIDI beatstring fpmpp         % rhythm: wand-er fit-ful-ly (Stress on beats 1 and 3)
%%MIDI gchord Ghcig             % chord vamp
%%MIDI program 40               % violin/fiddle for melody
%%MIDI chordprog 105            % banjo for vamp
P:I
"^Vamp""Em"z2 z3 | "A"z2 z3 | "Bm"z2 z3 | "Em"z2 z3 |
"Em"z2 z3 | "A"z2 z3 | "Bm"z2 z3 | "Em"z2 z2G ||
P:A
|: "Em"EF GBG | "A"Ac ABc | "Bm"dB dfd | "Em"ed BAG |
EF GBG | "A"Ac ABc | "Bm"Bd B2A | "Em"G2 E3 :|
P:B
|: "G"BG BAG | "A"Ac ABc | "D"df dfa | "Em"bg eg2 |
"G"b2 bag | "A"ae cec | "Bm"dB d2B | "Em"G2 E3 :|
%%center Five Dollar Jig, \u00a9 2018 by Eric Conrad
%%text Licensed for general use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.
%%text License details are available at:
%%center https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2018, 04:26:50 PM »

You've got me started now, I love 3/2 hornpipes here are another two crackers, Rusty Gully and Isaac's Maggot.
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2018, 04:37:19 PM »

Triple time (3/2) hornpipes are not easy to accompany with LH basses and chords, and any attempt to play, or generate in ABC, an oom-pah-pah rhythm is likely to kill the tune stone-dead.

Anahata's great playing here shows the sort of imaginative LH accompaniments which can be used to bring the tune to life. (:)
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Anahata

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2018, 04:44:00 PM »

I really can't see the value in struggling to get an ABC player to stick an Oom-pah bass under a 3/2 hornpipe, and I'm not convinced about doing that with other kinds of tune either.

In particular with 3/2s, they are often very syncopated, and you can have  a lot of fun emphasising the offbeats with bass and and chord patterns at least half of which don't fall on the main beats of the bar. To do that in a way that fits on a melodeon, the only tools you need are a melodeon and a bit of time for experimenting.

By way of illustration, here's our own Derek the Nutter showing how The Dusty Miller is just as much 6/4 as 3/2 and not an oom-pah in sight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-fiCV9_GEs

Crossposted - thank you, Steve!  :|bl

(edit: typos)
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 06:07:10 PM by Anahata »
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Roger Hare

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2018, 05:35:46 PM »

So, the computer doesn't really mind how you write it. But, if you rewrite your tune as 3/4, it's going to give you that
waltz 'fundamental chord chord' pattern,...
Which answers my question about the basic '3/2-ness' (or otherwise) of a tune.

... I actually have no familiarity with what a 3/2 tune would be expected to be like...
Moi aussi - which is what prompted the comment/query in the first instance - I just transcribed a few 3/2 tunes and on
looking through my collection of scripts have come across a few more, including t'Old Lancashire Hornpipe mentioned
elsewhere in this thread. I've managed to convince myself that I need to know how to cope with these 3/2 things.

If listening to the chords is important to you, as it is to me, I'd suggest familiarising yourself with use of lowercase chord letters
and the %%gchord commands as I've found them super important for ABC...
Listening to the chords isn't 'important' of itself, but I've found that including chords makes the fairly insipid MIDI playback
more listenable to - and this is important to me when learning a tune, as I can't sight-read and don't have a good enough ear
to 'earalise' a tune by looking at the score. I hadn't looked at %%gchord commands - something else to investigate...

I don't know if you can really blame abc2midi for not including a chord profile for your chosen time signature, as sometimes there
aren't clear answers - the software is likely used for a large number of things...
I wasn't really 'blaming' abc2midi for not including a chord profile - it was an observation, but everything you say is
right on the button. In particular, it took me a while to sort out which bit(s) of the heirarchy of software was causing
problems, and indeed, whether or not the problem was really rooted in the standard...

Thank you.

Roger
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 05:54:58 PM by lachenal74693 »
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Gena Crisman

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2018, 06:08:40 PM »

Well, if anyone wants to arrange things a bit in abc in the future (hello future reader!) you could always set your gchord string to cccccc, ie 6 chord pulses per bar, and then use lower case in "s to indicate when you want the fundamental only on a case by case basis on the score itself. Also, you can change this string at any time you need to in the body of your music. I do a lot of my arranging (not that I do that much) with abc, and I find this kind of thing to be helpful, but, I also don't play any 3/2 hornpipes.

I'm quite interested in the tune Pete posted and the effects of midi beatstring.

Glad the thread is being helpful though!
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2018, 06:39:44 PM »

If you're not familiar with old 3/2 English Hornpipes you have a treat to come. They are real fun to play. You won't learn how to play them from the dots, though. You need to listen to some played well. Anahata's a master of the art.
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2018, 08:14:38 PM »

If you want a steady LH rhythm pattern as a starting point, I'd recommend just tapping 3 beats/bar on the chord buttons.  You can then introduce bass buttons as you will to punctuate, lead or shade.
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2018, 06:54:33 AM »

...you could always set your gchord string to cccccc, ie 6 chord pulses per bar, and then use lower case in "s
to indicate when you want the fundamental only...

So, we have:

M: 3/2
%%MIDI gchord cccccc
L: 1/8


but I don't quite follow the 'use lower case in "s' part? Looking at the (rather splendid) 5/8 tune featured
elsewhere in the thread didn't help. Sorry if I'm being dense, but could you expand a little?

Thank you.

Roger
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2018, 04:55:33 PM »

Sure! But, I basically just stumbled over saying, using lower case letters within the speech marks you'd normally use for chords (ie, guitar chords, hence the name 'gchord').

If you're not familiar though, if you use a lower case letter in your "speech marks" instead of an upper case letter, compare "C" vs "c", then this instructs abc2midi to replace any chords it would play with just that fundamental note. Thus, any oom-pah style gchord string becomes, effectively, oom-oom. I'm suggesting that if you set the gchord string to all chords all the time, ie, pah-pah-etc, if you write in an upper case character, you would get the chord sounded, and if you write in a lower case character, you'll get the fundamental sounded instead, ala:

Code: [Select]
X:1
T: Chordotron
M: 3/2
%%MIDI gchord cccccc
L: 1/4
K:C
|"C"z"Dm"z"Em"z"F"z"G"z"Am"z\
|"c"z"d"z"e"z"f"z"g"z"a"z\
|"c"z"Dm"z"Em"z"f"z"G"z"a"z\
|"C"z"d"z"Em"z"F"z"g"z"Am"z:|

Here, you can see one bar is a fully voiced chord run, the next should be played as a fundamental note run, with the latter two bars as a mix based on what's written in the speech marks. This is one way you could control what is played and when it is played. I've been using lower case chord notes to write out more complicated bass work or combinations of left and right hand side notes into my abc scores, and if, like me, you have trouble audiating it all without hearing it, it can be pretty helpful.

Otherwise though this is probably in no way an actually useful strategy, but, you never know.
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Hugh Taylor

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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #15 on: September 15, 2018, 05:16:36 PM »

Triple time (3/2) hornpipes are not easy to accompany with LH basses and chords, and any attempt to play, or generate in ABC, an oom-pah-pah rhythm is likely to kill the tune stone-dead.

Well Steve, I didn't actually say that I wanted to fit an oom-pah-pah bass to a 3/2 tune did I?
Tumbling Tom play an annual Christmas ceilidh in Kendal each December, and one of our callers is writing a dance to fit a triple time hornpipe tune. We have three horn players playing with us, and prior to writing their parts I usually play the tune in abc with the chords and then write the horn parts. If ensures no clash with the chord players.
I'll have a go at the suggestions above: thanks to all for the responses.
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #16 on: September 15, 2018, 05:37:48 PM »

...I basically just stumbled over saying, using lower case letters within the speech marks...

Otherwise though this is probably in no way an actually useful strategy, but, you never know.

I thought it must be something like that - just wanted to make sure. Thanks.

It may indeed be useful - just listened to your example which makes the whole concept very clear.

Thanks again.

Roger
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #17 on: September 15, 2018, 05:44:55 PM »

Well Steve, I didn't actually say that I wanted to fit an oom-pah-pah bass to a 3/2 tune did I?
No, you never did, but it looked as if the rest of the thread was heading that way at times.
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #18 on: September 16, 2018, 01:12:53 AM »

...if you use a lower case letter in your "speech marks" instead of an upper case letter, compare "C" vs "c", then this instructs abc2midi to replace any chords it would play with just that fundamental note.

This is why I favour the use of "C" for chords and "c" for bass fundamentals in my notation even though most here say they don't.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 01:15:44 AM by Tone Dumb Greg »
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Re: Triple time hornpipe chord playing
« Reply #19 on: September 17, 2018, 04:08:56 PM »

You've got me started now, I love 3/2 hornpipes here are another two crackers, Rusty Gully and Isaac's Maggot.
Where's me box?  :||:
I just got pointed to The Red Lion Hornpipe by a post on concertina.net. Nice!

ABC on Paul Hardy's Session Tune Book - I added %%MIDI gchord fcfcfc as
prescribed by Gena Crisman and it sounds OK (for learning from).
« Last Edit: September 17, 2018, 04:21:22 PM by lachenal74693 »
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