[Message from Artful Codger]

ABCs, MIDIs and PDF scores for these songs currently may be downloaded from this SkyDrive repository: (CLICK). The scores include only the first verse and refrain (if any), in the Provençal classical norm.

With the ABC notation you can generate your own MIDIs and scores, possibly transposed to a different key or modified in some other way. If transposing, I recommend that you first remove any "Original notation" sections.

My notation uses ABC version 2 extensions and abcm2ps-specific directives which may cause problems for convertion tools other than those based upon abc2midi and abcm2ps. I recommend using the online converter at mandolintab.net (but pass it individual tunes, instead of the entire NDDD tunebook!) Don't bother with the Concertina.net converter; it cannot handle my notation. For writing or converting ABC on your own computer, several packages exist which integrate the compatible programs, such as Nils Liberg's EasyABC (available pre-built for Mac and Windows, with simple installation). They should also be capable of loading the entire tunebook.

For most songs, the original 16th/17th c. manuscripts include music notation, from which the scores were derived. No meter was indicated, and temporary variations in meter were common and not overtly flagged. Meter notations and bar line placements in the modern notation have been inferred. The musical notation in the second collection largely corresponds to modern notation (apart from bar lines and persistence of accidentals), so for those songs I present only the original notation, as closely as I can emulate it.

We have had to guess at the appropriate tempos; the transcribed scores contain no tempo indications. Sometimes we were aided by finding recordings of the pieces; at other times we were guided only by the tone of the words, bearing in mind that noëls of the period were commonly set to dance tunes or the tunes of popular secular songs. Any glaring differences in tempo from actual practice in Provence are largely my own. --AC

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