18th century English tunes - new site

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: ConcertinaChap
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:44 PM

> Great, I don't know any English tunes, would love to explore them

If you're new to English music then The Lewes Favourites is a great site to teach you the basic repertoire. Lots of lovely stuff there.

Back to the thread. This looks like a nice site coming along here and I've bookmarked it for fuller eploration. I agree that the ideal alternative formats are MIDI and ABC and longer term that's what you should aim at, but in the short term do whatever is easiest for you. If Scorch is easy then I'd go for it.

Incidentally, Sibelius will as you say output MIDI and if you just upload the resultant files to your web site and link to them using normal anchors people will be able to download them. Or does Cafe Press inhibit even this?

Cheers,

Chris

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:11 PM

I use Noteworthy and Noteworthy imports MIDI so MIDI would be best for me.

ABC would be a good second best as there is now a converter online to convert ABC to Noteworthy or I can convert ABC to midi and import to Noteworthy.

Scorch is no use to me at all as it is only available for Windows and Mac and I am running Ubuntu Linux. A Check on the Wine database suggests that you can get it to run in Linux using Wine but you have to install Firefox for Windows and even then it does not run properly - problems with sound. Also I see no point in messing about installing Firefox for Windows just for one software company's plugin. Overall, Scorch is a none starter in Linux as far as I'm concerned.

Whatever you finally decide. please, please make sure it is platform independent. Midi and abc both meet that criterion. Scorch does not.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: G-Force
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 11:25 AM

Still not working for me.

First time, I looked at about six tunes then the next one I got an error message. After that, when I clicked on a tune in one of the lists the screen went first blank black then blank white.

Just went back in again, and the same black/white thing happens.

I'm using Windows XP and Firefox. Does Adobe need to be the very latest?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 11:23 AM

Great, I don't know any English tunes, would love to explore them

I second the vote for ABC format. Can play as MIDI, export as tablature for guitar, harmonica etc. And I know at least one musician who can just read it from a page.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 10:55 AM

G-Force - sorry, I crossposted with you. I've just had a look and it seems to be working okay. I don't think there's a limit to how many times you can access it. Can you let me know if it's still not working?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 10:51 AM

Jack - think it comes down to familiarity with the program. It'd probably take me roughly the same amount of time to input the same tunes into Sibelius, which has an auto-transpose facility. I had a look at your link and it made about as much sense to me as my site probably does to someone who doesn't read notation! I mainly access music by ear and use notation as a second string. At the moment, I don't have time to get to grips with abc, I'm afraid, but I'll definitely bear it in mind as a future project when I'm less frantically busy. :-)

Will - I think I'm going to try and go with the Scorch idea. That way it doesn't cost anyone (including me!) anything to access the tunes and people who are unfamiliar with notation can hear as well as see them. If there's loads of interest in the site a few weeks down the line, I'd be tempted to pay for the upgrade and add the files as MIDI as well, which can presumably then be imported into a variety of music software (I know my friend's copy of Mozart imports MIDI and displays it as notation and tab.)

Thanks for the feedback fellas!

Chris

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: G-Force
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 10:46 AM

Well it looked great at first, then it stopped working. I couldn't even open up tunes again which I'd already looked at. Is there a limit in the software as to how many times you can use it?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 09:54 AM

Scorch is a good alternative if you (a) can't cope with abc and (b) the blog site doesn't support audio files. Anyone who buys sheet music from the web sites, as I do, will almost certainly have Scorch - and it's free software.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 09:00 AM

I transcribed The Oddity into ABC since I wanted to print it in 3/2 (without the 2/4 version cluttering things up). I realized it had quite a narrow range, so I got BarFly to transpose it and added it to my file of nine-notes-up-from-C tunes:

http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Chalumeau.abc

I think it would be more use to most of us if the site were just done in ABC from the ground up, since that would allow operations like transposition and editing the tunes into our own medleys. But it's your baby, and better you do it your way than not at all.

For a comparison - I think it took me about four hours to put that chalumeau tunes file together. I only transcribed one or two new tunes for it, but there was a fair bit of minor editing involved, and most of the tunes had to be transposed. How long would it take you to put together 50-something tunes into a tunebook using Sibelius, if you already had them in different files and in different keys?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 08:43 AM

I was mistaken. I've designed the site in wordpress and I forgot that I need to buy an upgrade in order to upload audio (which MIDI kind of is). What I can do however is upload Scorch files which display the notation and play it. Scorch is a free download. Would that be of use to anyone?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 08:19 AM

The thought had crossed my mind. However Sibelius doesn't export abc format, and to be honest buying and learning another music software program feels like a bit of a waste of time (for me personally I mean!) However, Sibelius does export as MIDI so it would be very easy for to put a MIDI of each file up if you think that might be useful?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:28 AM

Excellent work, Chris. I love sites like these and yours is a welcome addition - long may it grow.

Just one suggestion - ignore if of no relevance: Would there be a place on the site to offer the tunes in .abc format (text file) as well as PDF? The beauty of .abc is that it can be imported by many other music problems and can then generate both music and midi. My own program (Harmony Asistant) imports and exports music files in a huge variety of formats - including .abc.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Pibydd
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:19 AM

Well done, Mr Green!

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 04:44 PM

I haven't tried printing them yet. If anyone does could you let me know how they look?

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Tootler
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 04:40 PM

Looks a useful site. I will have a proper look at more suitable time. A bit too late at night just now.

The notation is clear and having the tunes as pdf means you should get a decent printout.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 02:48 PM

Hokay - have added The Oddity in both time signatures. I've also added an alphabetical menu as well as the menu via time signature. Thanks all!

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 12:56 PM

Thanks for your kind comments!

Jack - I generated the scores in Sibelius 5 and saved them as PDFs working on the basis that most people have Adobe Acrobat. I'll have a go at putting The Oddity up as a 3/2 later tonight, but I'll leave the original up there as well (I think it's important to preserve the integrity of the source material.)

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Ann N
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 08:50 AM

Thankyou, I've bookmarked it .... and had a quick run through of the Sarabande :)

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 06:59 AM

Nice to see someone going live with a small and selective site for a change.

What software generated those scores?

I see scores that look like that quite often on the web (the same odd font for titles).

BTW I would prefer to see "The Oddity" notated in 3/2. You can leave the original time signature in an editorial note, you don't want it in your face in something you've printed off to use.

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: GUEST,chris
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 06:43 AM

good potential I will come back to it
chris

Subject: RE: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 06:07 AM

Have just bookmarked it. No time right now to do more than glance & sniff, but I sure like what I see and will go back. Cheers, sir.

I remain

Your most humble and obedient servant

Bonnie

Subject: 18th century English tunes - new site
From: Chris Green
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 05:49 AM

Hi all

I've been doing a bit of research into 18th century country dance tunes and have decided to start publishing my findings on a new website. The aim is to start getting these tunes played again as most of them don't appear to have been touched in around 200 years or so. If you're interested please have a look at Mr Green's Fantasickal Compendium of English Country Dance Tunes

Cheers

Chris

PS - Any feedback would be most welcome!