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[Lester]

Bl**dy hell, what have I started, just 'cos I can't do ABC.

Ian

Think it might be because you said "Standard musical notation wins hands down." not "I can't do ABC"

 

[Pete Dunk]

Think it might be because you said "Standard musical notation wins hands down." not "I can't do ABC"

 

No Lester, Bill Young said that. I'm deeply saddened that my poor attempts to transcribe this tune to abc has resulted in such controversy. It will be a long time, if ever, before I do such a thing again. In my own defence I have to say that chords in the original transcription do not follow conventional notation and appear to be accordion specific and at variance to standard notation. That's the reason that I decided to leave the chords out. Apologies to all. 'Nuff said.

[Anahata]

I'm deeply saddened that my poor attempts to transcribe this tune to abc has resulted in such controversy. It will be a long time, if ever, before I do such a thing again. In my own defence I have to say that chords in the original transcription do not follow conventional notation and appear to be accordion specific and at variance to standard notation. That's the reason that I decided to leave the chords out. Apologies to all. 'Nuff said.

No, please keep doing this.
I only added the chords to demonstrate that it was possible in ABC - not (and perhaps I should have made this clearer at the time) because I thought chords ought to be there. I'm definitely of the school of thought that a tune is  a tune and chords are a matter of interpretation or arrangement. But I wasn't about to take the "ABC can't do this" challenge lying down 

[Owen Woods]

Think it might be because you said "Standard musical notation wins hands down." not "I can't do ABC"

 

No Lester, Bill Young said that. I'm deeply saddened that my poor attempts to transcribe this tune to abc has resulted in such controversy. It will be a long time, if ever, before I do such a thing again. In my own defence I have to say that chords in the original transcription do not follow conventional notation and appear to be accordion specific and at variance to standard notation. That's the reason that I decided to leave the chords out. Apologies to all. 'Nuff said.

Eh? Don't be silly, having people transcribe to ABC is very useful

[Simon]

I didn't know about Lilypond.
But as far as I can see it doesn't allow you to instantly view the written music at the same time as editing the code (unless I haven't found out how to do that yet). You have to recompile the code each time you want to view the music.

Also, in Lilypond is there a way of hearing the music which you write?

You have to recompile to generate a new ps file, but with most editors you can do this from within the editor. It helps to split the file in shorter include files to increase compilation speed. You can have an editor open together with the generated ps file. With the right setup you can press a key combination in the editor and the changes will show up in the postscript viewer. In ghostview you can even click on part of the score and the editor will jump to the corresponding code (at least that works in linux).
To play the music you have to convert it to midi first (just like abc). I think you just have to add a \midi statement to the source.

[Steve_freereeder]

I didn't know about Lilypond.
But as far as I can see it doesn't allow you to instantly view the written music at the same time as editing the code (unless I haven't found out how to do that yet). You have to recompile the code each time you want to view the music.

Also, in Lilypond is there a way of hearing the music which you write?

You have to recompile to generate a new ps file, but with most editors you can do this from within the editor. It helps to split the file in shorter include files to increase compilation speed. You can have an editor open together with the generated ps file. With the right setup you can press a key combination in the editor and the changes will show up in the postscript viewer. In ghostview you can even click on part of the score and the editor will jump to the corresponding code (at least that works in linux).
To play the music you have to convert it to midi first (just like abc). I think you just have to add a \midi statement to the source.

Thanks, Simon!

[Anahata]

In ghostview you can even click on part of the score and the editor will jump to the corresponding code (at least that works in linux).

How do you set that up? I would imagine if it's possible with Lilypond it's possible in ABC too, or does it rely on Lilypond embedding source line numbers in the PS... and gv knowing about this 

Which editor(s) does this work with? I normally use vim but I promise not to get into a holy war if you're an EMACS user 

[Simon]

How do you set that up? I would imagine if it's possible with Lilypond it's possible in ABC too, or does it rely on Lilypond embedding source line numbers in the PS... and gv knowing about this 

Which editor(s) does this work with? I normally use vim but I promise not to get into a holy war if you're an EMACS user 

I haven't used this feature for years, so I hope I'm not confusing lilypond with latex. I've used a lot of latex where you can click on the dvi file to jump to the corresponding code in the editor. No emacs required (I'm also on the side of vi). I'm pretty sure I've used something similar with lilypond but I've forgotten how. Anyway, it should depend on line number info in the output file, so if it works with lilypond it should be possible with abc (probably after modifying abcm2ps). If I find out more I'll let you know.

[Howard Jones]

Just the melody line is far from the whole tune.

This isn't the case where folk music is concerned.  Usually the melody line is the whole tune, chords are an optional extra.  Besides, as others have already pointed out, ABC can show chords, and a lot else besides.  I am constantly amazed at how such a simple system can reproduce remarkably complex music.

Of course, if you are writing complicated multi-instrumental scores then there are undoubtedly better ways to do it.  But as a system for jotting down and sharing simple tunes ABC can't be beaten.

[Pete Dunk]

No, please keep doing this.
I only added the chords to demonstrate that it was possible in ABC - not (and perhaps I should have made this clearer at the time) because I thought chords ought to be there.

Thanks Anahata, I didn't mean that I would give up on transcribing tunes in abc, just that I will avoid transcribing pieces with non standard chord/bass combinations (is the use of upper and lower case accordion specific to indicate octave??). Incidentally I'm sure there's a header command that forces the chords to print below the stave rather than using underscores in each instance, I've just forgotten the syntax :-(

[Anahata]

Incidentally I'm sure there's a header command that forces the chords to print below the stave rather than using underscores in each instance, I've just forgotten the syntax :-(

I looked it up in Guido's book and couldn't find it, nor did abcm2ps -H reveal any clues, but all the same I think you are right and I've forgotten how to do it too 

[DRUMKILBO]

I'm a bit confused with the reference to the way I write my chords as 'non standard chords/bass'. This is the way it's been done in Scotland for 60-70 years and in Old Time music for longer. Does ABC only apply to music for melodeon?
If I put Al's tune, as it's written, in front of a Scottish dance band comprising 1st and 2nd accordion, fiddle, piano, and bass, and drums, they would play it nae bother. 1st box and fiddle play the melody, piano plays the bass note and chord ie; C#a7, bass plays the C# and 2nd box plays the a7th chord. Melody is tight together and the piano adds higher notes within the chord, bass will play as written and add the odd passing note in and 2nd box will use different chord inversions to add harmony within the basic written chord.
If a piano player plays with a D/G melodeon, do they play the same limited bass and chord as that melodeon ?

Ian.   

[Chris Ryall]

Chris Walshaw, who developed ABC plays Bourbonnais low D bagpipes.  I'd guess it started as his own notation, and indeed I  used to jog down tunes "DABCGFGD.." on beer mats in the pre recording walkman era. In cybernetic form ABC will handle any instrument that plays on a modal diatonic scale and has been adapted to handle tonal scales such as modulation into other key, and melodic/harmonic minors.

I believe multi instument notation and chords came in later. Non-illean Bagpipers aren't famous for their chords and these chaps can be solitary creatures (Chris isn't).  I have no idea how ABC might handle Scttish pipes - tuned halfway between concert notes - but I'd be willing to bet someone has solved even that.   ABC is safely text-based, incredibly concise,and generally quite intuitive - perfect for forums (fora  ) such as these.

In another life I've used a similar text based pseudo code called PBN "portable bridge notation". Again totally idiosyncratic but ideal for it's purpose of recording the play of a bridge game. As per ABC, forum geeks have moved it on, and you can load into web viewers and watch those cards dance round your screen - totally text driven. But I digress ..

[Simon]

Incidentally I'm sure there's a header command that forces the chords to print below the stave rather than using underscores in each instance,

In abcm2ps this works:

Code: [Select]

V: 1 gchord=down

[Gandy]

Does ABC only apply to music for melodeon?

I don't think it was really an ABC comment.   ABC "guitar chords" as they call them just display or print whatever you put between inverted commas - its up to the reader whether they understand them or not.

[Bill Young]

Been away for a few days, so some catching up to do . . .

My, all this furore sparked off by a poor ABC copy of a finished work! I do stand corrected, though - ABC can show bass and chords. Anahata's ABC copy of Ian's tune converts just fine. I would suggest, then, that when ABC is being used to copy a piece, it be done accurately.

Someone mentioned ABC being editable. Yes (and so is any other music notation programme), and fine for working on your own stuff. But why would you expect to be able to edit another composer's work? You don't get to change a printed book, alter a painting once the paint's dry, or, if you were reading out someone's poem, you wouldn't normally change the words to something of your own choice. Why should you expect to treat a finished piece of music differently?

The bass/chord symbols used by Ian are standard in Scottish music, and have been so for generations. This is how they appear in published books by Kerrs, Mozart & Allan, DA Publications, Taigh na Teud etc. You can even find MSs in Jimmy Shand's own fair hand written this way. It's a good system for showing the stradella bass (including alternate- and counter-bass) without including a bass clef. As for upper and lower case, the usual convention is for upper case to represent a bass note, and lower case for a chord, e.g for F#d7, a solo player would play F# bass note (on counterbass row) followed by a d7 chord. It's usually quite clear what's intended in any piece.

Just the melody line is far from the whole tune.

This isn't the case where folk music is concerned.  Usually the melody line is the whole tune, chords are an optional extra. 

This is getting to the nub of the problem. We're not talking about your "folk music" here. Most Scottish country dance and accordion music is composed and written down, and by and large it's usually played as written. Of course, there are arrangements - fiddle orchestras are particularly prone to them - but most accordion players would try to play a piece pretty much as written. There doesn't seem to be as much of the "do as you please, make it up as you go along" approach that seems to be prevalent among the posters here.

Personally, I find fiddle music, and the usual anaemic ABC scores posted on this forum, a PITA without chords. I wonder how many melodeon players would actually prefer to have bass/chords shown?

[Simon]

ABC "guitar chords" as they call them just display or print whatever you put between inverted commas - its up to the reader whether they understand them or not.

Not exactly. The 'guitar' chords should be written between double quotes and really are interpreted as chords. For example, they get transposed if you change the key with abc2abc (and some abcplayers play those chords). If you just want to display text above the score you should precede it with one of the formatting characters ^_<>@, for example "^something" to print something above the staff.

[Simon]

In ghostview you can even click on part of the score and the editor will jump to the corresponding code

How do you set that up?

Found something about inverse search. In lilypond it's called point-and-click, in this case working directly on the pdf file. It should be possible to include something similar in abcm2ps but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble.

[Gandy]

ABC "guitar chords" as they call them just display or print whatever you put between inverted commas - its up to the reader whether they understand them or not.

Not exactly. The 'guitar' chords should be written between double quotes and really are interpreted as chords. For example, they get transposed if you change the key with abc2abc (and some abcplayers play those chords). If you just want to display text above the score you should precede it with one of the formatting characters ^_<>@, for example "^something" to print something above the staff.

I didn't know that.  Are the "^" and "_" prefixes part of ABC Plus?  That's maybe why ABC Explorer was happy displaying the chords with the underscore ("_A" etc) but did not play them.

I think I'm correct though in that ABC software will display whatever you put between those inverted commas even if its not a meaningful chord.  I've certainly used it that way (in my ignorance) and I've seen plenty of ABC on the Internet that does the same.

[Chris Ryall]

Personally, I find fiddle music, and the usual anaemic ABC scores posted on this forum, a PITA without chords. I wonder how many melodeon players would actually prefer to have bass/chords shown?

I think chords are very useful as an adjunct to the tune (and a boon to beginners). But they really aren't cast in concrete in folk music. eg I'll commonly use different chords second time through, and the simpler the tune the more this seems to happen. I don't think Anahata uses the same left hand line twice in a tune!

Does a fiddle need chords written up?  ...that's quite an interesting question in my view