Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion

Subject: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 02:30 AM

I opened a thread about Notre-Dame des Doms Provençal carols and asked you not to post on it but to do it on another thread to come. Here is the thread for comments.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 02:47 AM

The 12th-century Notre-Dame des Doms is also known as Avignon Cathedral. The popes left Rome and were in Avignon from 1309 until 1377. A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon; all were French, and all were increasingly under the influence of the French crown. And then in the 15th century, we got Spanish popes.

I don't know whether the pope was bishop of Avignon, Rome, or both during this time.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 06:57 AM

Message from GUEST Georgina Boyes, moved here from the primary NDDD thread. --AC

---

Monique

Many thanks for making information about the collections more widely available. It's really interesting.

Do you know if the carols were used in church services, as a means of illustrating teaching about the Nativity story or both?

Georgina

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 11:18 AM

Georgina, I have no idea if they were used in "ordinary" church services, but they were sung for the Christmas midnigtht mass and in pastorales. If you know French you can read about it there. Btw, there are digitalized documents in French and Oc (books, sheet music, videos...) that you may read/listen to/watch, you just need to click on "Toutes les ressources" in the list on the right.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 11:22 AM

I got a preview, lucky me! Monique and AC, thank you SO much for this. What an incredible effort and what beautiful tunes. It is resources like this which make Mudcat the best!

ATB,

kat

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 06:09 PM

Notes about NDDD carol 1-4:
1 I left "borrida" in Oc with a short note saying that it's a fish soup/stew. There are many versions of it, some with eels, most with fish but AFAIK all with aioli -ours is with monkfish. You'll find more by googling "bourride recipes"
2 I also wrote "fougasse" in French as it's how you'll most easily find what it is. As a picture tells more than a long speech... picture1 and picture2...
3 Gratusa has been a mystery so far. I couln't find the word in any dictionary, either in my own paper ones or in online ones. A French slang word for guitar is "gratte" (because you strum) so maybe "gratusa" was some sort of string instrument for the same reason but... the verb "trinhonar" means to chime which seems unlikely about a guitar though we could imagine that he was plucking the strings to make them sound like chimes.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 07:39 PM

Fougasse-
Focaccia, the Italian bread, is found in both our Italian groceries and our supermarkets.
The recipes vary, but the Safeway nearest us sells one with olives. In appearance the type sold here looks like the loaf in link 1, Fougasse de Foix.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 08:54 PM

Could "gratusa" be related to English "grate", French "grattoir" or Catalan "gratar" which all have meanings relating to scraping? Some sort of guiro or washboard?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 05:02 AM

Jack, the meaning is indeed related to scraping but we don't have any sort of güiro in our trad instruments AFAIK; a "gratusa/gratuso" is normaly a grater (kitchen tool) or a baker's dough cutter or some sort of plough (here is a "manual" version).

Q, Provençal fougasse is more of the type of the main image in the French Wiki article.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM

Possibly completely wrong, but could there be a connection with a mandolin being the name for something used by a chef to slice vegetables as well as being better known as a musical instrument

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 06:32 PM

This thing looks like it would work pretty well if you played it like a washboard:

gratüsa from Piedmont

Being a piece of sheet iron mostly hanging in free space it would certainly ring, as the song says.

Isn't it quite likely that kitchen implements temporarily adapted to be musical instruments would leave little historical trace?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 05 Jan 12 - 01:06 AM

Jack, there's a glitch with the link above, so here it is again: Gratüsa = indeed a cheese grater. I agree that it wouldn't be reported as a music instrument.
A few trad songs with sheet music if you then click on "Gli oggetti di un tempo" then on the picture on the left, then on the first link in the window.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 06:00 PM

Could the ABCs from this project be put together in one file?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 09:52 PM

"Graters" of various kinds are used in some Latin American music; drawing a stick over such a device I would guess is an old practice.
See note on the guiras (guayos), a kind of metal grater, in this article:

http://www.ehow.com/list_6459474_instruments-used-reggaeton_.html

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 11:54 PM

Yes, the ABCs can be put together in one file; all the X-field numbers are distinct. (That's for those who may have interpreted your question literally.)

As for, "Will I compile the ABCs into a single file and put it in my repository?" I'll consider it, but my gut response is, "Probably not." Such a file would have to be maintained incrementally, and so would require extra work, while only a few people would actually benefit. Now that I'm providing MIDIs and PDFs as well as the posted ABCs, correspondingly fewer people have any need or desire to muck about with the ABC format (despite its many virtues). So applying the principle of diminishing returns and multiplying by the underappreciation factor....

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jul 12 - 06:31 PM

The ABC is very badly screwed up. BarFly can't make any sense of it, and neither can I. You seem to be using the "P:" construct to indicate both division of the music into sections and into voices.

I can retranscribe it into something more portable if I can see the original - and not otherwise, it's all so nonstandard as to be unintelligible. Are the originals around somewhere public?

There is no earthly point in having separate PDF and MIDI archives when ABC can generate both.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 21 Jul 12 - 10:32 PM

You are entitled to your strong opinions, but to make such sweeping pronouncements with such limited understanding only leaves egg on your face. Sometimes it's better to ask why rather than to condemn or dismiss.

The ABC isn't badly screwed up; rather, Barfly is terribly limited in what it can interpret, particularly in terms of ABC 1.7 and 2.0 extensions. Use the folkinfo.org converter instead--it produces cleaner scores anyway. What I do is not "non-standard"--quite the reverse. I mentioned the use of the extensions in the main thread. You do not need to see the original notation to make sense of what I've written, you need only to read the newer ABC standards.

The Barfly solutions to multiple voices are highly proprietary, and don't address some of the needed functions well or at all. You're welcome to create your own Barfly-specific versions, but when it comes to multiple-voiced music (apart from simple chordal alignment) there sadly IS no solution that works across all or most converters. Adhering to the standard and using a maximally standard-compliant converter accessible to everyone (like the folkinfo converter) is the most one can do.

I use P only for tune division. The divisions I typically use correspond to (1) modern notation (combined), (2) sometimes, the refrain separately, (3) each part of the original notation, to be played serially rather than in combination, since they rarely align properly due to original notation timing errors or idiosyncratic interpretation (for instance, a half note or whole note isn't always of standard duration). The primary intent of my P-directive usage is to be able to repeat or silence these various sections by simply altering the P directive in the header. I also found that using P directives helped to isolate the staves, to inhibit undesired cross-score polution (such as anticipatory clef changes and cancelling accidentals). I never separate individual voices with P-directives when they're combined in the modern notation.

The converters (including the folkinfo one) sometimes get confused when parts need to be tacet, such as when I want to get individual voices to be played serially after the ensemble rendition. A directive like "%%score 2" ought (in my interpretation) to suffice to silence all other voices during that section, but the MIDI generators tend to ignore scoring as irrelevant--actually, the behavior is stranger than that. I can think of only three solutions: (1) include all parts throughout, with explicit rests for all parts but the one that plays--this bloats ABCs terribly and unnecessarily; (2) create separate ABCs (X-numbered sections, each with its own header)--this makes it difficult to combine the group of related sections into a single PDF or MIDI file, particularly if the master ABC file contains multiple songs; (3) use only one voice throughout the solo section, changing clef/range as desired. The last is the option I have resorted to in many cases, but if there are only two voices, that hasn't always been necessary; for some reason the %%score/voice changes then seem to work as expected.

Another glitch you'll sometimes notice when listening to the original notation stuff is that some accidentals are not sticky enough. That's because ABC only offers two options (via three %%propagate-accidentals modes) to control how long the effect of an accidental persists: an accidental applies either only to the current note or until the end of the bar. But in the old scores, persistence was somewhere in between, since bar lines were used to demarcate sections rather than to indicate measures. This creates a quandary, because I can be faithful either to the score or to the ear, but not to both. Sometimes I added explicit accidentals to each affected note, identifying through a footnote which accidentals were not really notated explicitly in the score, but at other times I just left the MIDI to be wonky (since the important part is really to emulate the original presentation), and at other times I just suppressed MIDI playback for the original notation entirely. If ABC supported the concept of invisible bar lines, I could have used them to achieve the desired effect.

The problem goes deeper, since the original notation indicated accidentals either by a flat signs before a note or an X above or below the note--occasionally, the now familiar sharp sign was used--different scribes, different conventions. The flat or sharp was also used to naturalize a note; the natural had not yet evolved as a separate symbol. I could only get the desired MIDI note by the use of sharps or naturals, per modern conventions. Sometimes I indicated both sharps and X's, but particularly in the latter scores, I just use modern convention. The problem still niggles me, but not enough to do what I "should" have done: produce separate ABCs for the presentation (PDF score) and for the sound (MIDI). I've been trying to keep things simple, with only one relatively short, uncluttered ABC for the whole shebang.

The quite earthly point of making PDF and MIDI files available in addition to the ABC they're generated from is that, no matter how often or as clearly as we explain it, most readers here haven't an earthly idea of what to do with ABC notation--it just looks like gobblety-gook. Further, as noted above, ABC converters are annoyingly inconsistent when it comes to the handling of anything but simple one-voice MIDIs (i.e. extensions beyond v1.0 or v1.2). Having the PDFs and MIDIs allows people to hear/view the songs most directly, without any learning curve, intermediate generation steps or worries about what their chosen generator will or will not handle. It's only if they wish to transpose scores, alter the tune or score, or export the notation that they need recourse to the ABC. (Note that there are many tools that can transpose and change the tempo of MIDI playback.) Also, eventually I'd like to put the MIDIs in a permanent repository that supports live linking, so that we can add direct links in the song index and ABC posts, and with one click people can listen to the music, as with the natively-hosted Mudcat and DigiTrad MIDIs.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 06:21 AM

The point of using a unified ABC processor like BarFly is that you can play the tunes and view them with the same application.

What you're doing is using the so-called "ABC 2.0" stuff that Gonzato and Moine invented. It's directed to using ABC as a typesetting notation with Moine's "abcm2ps" program - it doesn't represent music any more, it represents notations for notating music, and it's application-specific - only abcm2ps understands it. Pointless. There are plenty of other and better music typesetters out there.

I don't mind trying to make something more more portable, but I will need to see the orginals to do it. I literally can't do anything with the ABCs you've provided, since I have no idea what they are trying to say - it would be easier to start afresh. But I'd need access to your sources.

There is no need to retain old and ambiguous usage for accidentals - if you can work out what they mean, modern conventions can represent the same information, and you can always include editorial notes in the header if something is irresolvably confusing.

This is really muddled:

The primary intent of my P-directive usage is to be able to repeat or silence these various sections by simply altering the P directive in the header.

You don't get to decide what "P:" means. Its meaning was agreed more than 15 years ago. Nobody seems to implement it correctly for multi-voice music (BarFly gets it horribly wrong) but having users invent their own semantics based on empirical experimentation with their favourite program certainly isn't going to make it any more implementable.

I have never seen the point of MIDIs. I don't use them at all. Since a properly written ABC can give you the same sound with more options (you can choose tempo, instrument etc) and also give you staff notation, why keep the MIDI hanging around? - it's purely an output format, you don't store it.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 11:41 AM

I'm not going to pollute this thread further attempting to discuss or debate with you--your history here has shown it's pointless. If you can't make sense of what is plain and correct ABC encoding, it's not my fault or concern. Nor does it matter if you think MIDIs are pointless; it's a minority opinion.

If you have specific questions, you can send me a PM, including your email address. I will not respond to comments like "You did this wrong" or "This is useless." I'm much smarter than you think.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 10:19 AM

I simply want some ABCs for these tunes in a form I can use; when I first posted in this thread I thought it would be a simple matter to copy and paste what you've got into one file. But it isn't that simple, because what you've done has so much application-specific typesetting stuff in it that I can't edit it without a lot of unnecessary difficulty.

If I could get at the original you're using I could create what I want quite easily. Why be so secretive about it?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 10:37 AM

Here we go. This seems to be what you've got:

Google Books entry

But you can't read it on-line.

Seems to be no copy in the National Library of Scotland, though their music catalogue may not be fully computerized yet.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 01:27 PM

The source materials I've borrowed are not mine to share--only the content is sharable, and we're now running into a bureaucratic tangle ensuring even that.

Please explain why you "need" the source materials when clearer transcriptions of the source scores (with as little alteration as ABC permits) are already contained in the PDFs, after the modernized versions. Can your system not read PDFs??

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 02:07 PM

I was thinking of adding some of them to my Nine Note Tune Book - I can do with more multi-part pieces. But my aim there is to produce the most portable ABC I possibly can (and maybe transposed fom the original).   Since these tunes are only two-voice (if I read the description of the book right) and published in 1856, there shouldn't be any insuperable problems with either representation or intellectual property.

The main problem with using your PDFs is that you've only done a small part of the book so far. And there doesn't seem a lot of point in me transcribing a transcription.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 03:12 PM

For one who would like to sample these carols, a few are offered in the cd OSCO, Les Noels Provencaux. Sound Extracts at http://www.albumtrad.com/en/osco/00380-les-noels-provencaux.xhtml

Also some of the 39 tracks on the 2-cd album. Noel! by Petits Chanteurs a la Croix De Bois, EMI. Did not find any sound clips.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:36 PM

Thanks, Q. When Monique or I have come across a sound clip online for a posted song, I've added a link after the ABC. Variations in the spelling of the titles complicates searching, so pointers to additional recordings are always welcome. Of course, the tunes don't always coincide with those in the original manuscript.

Jack, we're pretty sure the Clamon and Pansier book is not from 1856; it was first published in 1925, reissued in 1961 (and, apparently, again in 1981). One of the authors survived into the 1990s; it will be decades yet before even the 1925 book enters the public domain.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:58 PM

Okay, maybe I should look into older sources, if I can find any.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 07:51 PM

Jack, you won't find any, they were published for the first time in 1925, the only older source available is the manuscripts kept in Avignon City Library and I'm in an awful mess about being allowed to make my transcriptions public as they gave me a copy of the original material "for my private use only"; the curator said she needed to ask the city legal department because there's a special regulation about some unique material kept by public library and it's Summer so most staff members are off. "Provençal carols" doesn't necessarily mean Notre-Dame des Doms carols. There're presently three second hand books by Clamon and Pansier at Amazon.fr but their stuff is © till 2048 since Clamon died in 1978.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:00 PM

Okay, I see the situation.

This was the 1856 book I found a link to:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=V4cQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR49&dq=notre+dame+des+doms+noels&hl=en&sa=X&ei=M-UNUO7-IqWf0QXaooCQCg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBDgK

Is that text-only?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:13 PM

Your link links to "Recueil de Noëls composés en langue provençale par Nicolas Saboly", so they're Saboly's, not the Notre-Dame des Doms ones.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 25 Jul 12 - 08:52 AM

After reading many legal documents about French "author's rights" laws -not exactly the same as "copyright"- it appears that the 62 carols are free of rights since they've been already published while the author's rights of any unpublished material though centuries old belong to whatever individual or corporate body legally owning the physical original document. The rights only last 25 years after their 1st publication.

Then... I've slightly edited my first post, I'll edit the 11 carols lyrics I posted so far -only the 1st one is done- but I'll leave the lists with both classical and Mistralian spellings to make them easier to find through searching.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 25 Jul 12 - 07:23 PM

UPDATE: I've edited 9 of them so far. In the opening post, I've also added a couple of pieces of information that I found in Gustave Bayle's book.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 04:35 PM

Disregard my post about N-D Doms carols on cds by Petits Chanteurs .... The tracks are by Saboly.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms Provencal carols
From: Artful Codger
Date: 06 Dec 12 - 03:21 PM

Message from katlaughing, moved here from the primary NDDD thread. --AC

---

This is one of my fav. threads to check. I hope you both know how important AND appreciated it is.

tks!

kat

Subject: RE: ABC conversion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 07:04 PM

The closure of the folkinfo.org has taken away access to its ABC converter. But there is a similar converter at the site mandolintab.net which is capable of handling the NDDD ABCs. I've added a link to the converter to the "Quick links" at the top of the NDDD thread. I also added some information about compatible ABC converters to the general message on the scores.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Crowhugger
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 10:39 PM

I love these threads, though they make me wish I could speak/sing Provencal. Thank you very much Monique and Artful Codger for all you've done to put together this resource.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 02:32 AM

Can you speak French? Monique has been providing singable translations for all of them. I'm too lazy to attempt the same for English.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 12:23 PM

Carol 2-1, Quand Ouserian Ley Nouvellos, posted 11 Nov 13-
The last lines of the translation, "...so that the little one's uvula fell off."

The uvula is the pendant fleshy lobe in the middle of the posterior border of the soft palate.

Is this what is meant?

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Monique
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 06:32 PM

Yes, I know it can be puzzling but it's what it means. It fell off from dryness as he didn't had any milk at all. At least it's what the original lyrics read. The guys who wrote the lyrics had a very vivid imagination: Baby Jesus' uvula fell off from dryness (#2-1), he was supposed to word his opinion about honey when he was just a few days old (#1-42)...

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 06:37 PM

Monique will probably weigh in on this, but I looked at the private exchange we had on this part of the translation, and she assured me that's really what it says, literally, "so that the uvula fell off of this little one." The sense, as I gather it, is that Jesus was so chaste and pure, he wouldn't suckle on Mary's teats, and as a consequence his throat became inflamed or parched, either from malnourishment or underfeeding, causing the dangly bit to wither away.

Subject: RE: Notre-Dame des Doms carols discussion
From: Artful Codger
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 06:39 PM

And she beat me to it. Sorry for the cross-post.