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MIDI Volunteer Sought
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Subject: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:44 PM I am looking for someone(s) who would like to take on entering melody lines for about 200+ items from Allen Slave Songs (online) and similar sources, in Noteworthy Composer. Note/lyric matching is desired but not required. This would be part of the African American Spirituals project here at Mudcat, which is already a unique resource. Adding MIDIs would be a huge contribution to the world's opportunity to appreciate this body of folk music. The reason for prioritizing these specific collections is that recorded versions, MIDIs, and print versions for most other known spirituals already exist, many in an online, downloadable form. Also the Allen, Hampton, and Higginson material tends not to duplicate other material in known print works. Questions, answers, and coordination of efforts-- right here in this thread. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:50 PM If you want this doing, why don't you do it yourself? It's hardly arduous. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:51 PM Wys- what's the URL? |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 29 Dec 03 - 03:55 PM Let me add something, the "African American Spirituals" is not a 'Mudcat Project' You've filled this place with stuff that only two or three people are interested in, and Max, Joe etc. have been gracious enough to keep stum. We are NOT interested! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 04:23 PM Lest anyone thing Guest raves right, not so-- have discussed Spirituals with Dick and Susan several times, all lights green. Mmario, is this for a look-see? ALLEN COLLECTION If you're diving in, best leave a few breadcrumbs here in case others want to pitch in! Guest volunteers also welcome! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 29 Dec 03 - 04:27 PM Whatever, Susan. Did it never cross your mind that a 'Yes' from Dick and Susan was the easiest way to shut you up? |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Joe Offer Date: 29 Dec 03 - 04:28 PM The online text of Allen's Slave Songs of the United States is here (click). It's too bad the University of North Carolind didn't provide MIDI transcriptions for those of us who can't hear a tune just by looking at the sheet music. There are many of us who would be very interested in hearing MIDI transcriptions of these tunes. I have the Dover edition of this book, and I do transcribe hundreds of tunes for Mudcat, but I don't have the time or interest to do the entire book. I can understand susan's request for a volunteer transcriber - transcribing hundreds of MIDI files is a daunting task, but some people like to do it. I think that Susan's "Spirituals" project is a very worthwhile effort, although I disagree with her practice of posting songs by flooding Mudcat with hundreds of individual threads. I still haven't figured out how to organize them into a useable form. If somebody want's to do the MIDIs, I'm sure we can work out a way to post them here. However, I think that Jeff and I should be consulted on how they are posted, and I will not tolerate the posting of one ADD tune thread for each song. Since the songs are available in an online document at a stable institution like the University of North Carolina, I see no need for them all to bere-posted here at Mudcat. If somebody is doing a study of a particular song and its various versions, then it makes complete sense to post all versions of a song in a thread, along with links to MIDI files. So, in summary, it sounds like a good idea to me - but I don't like the idea of inundating Mudcat with information that isn't organized or indexed. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 29 Dec 03 - 04:30 PM I think this is a GREAT project and just might be able to help a little. I have Cakewalk instead of Noteworthy, so I'll PM you for more info. Thanks! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 29 Dec 03 - 04:59 PM My apologies, especially towards Susan. I'm sorry to say that I find 'WYSIWYG' difficult to deal with online, and I get cross. The majority of that difficulty is down to me. I apologise for that. Good luck in the project everyone. I'm sure that it'll be worthwhile. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 05:10 PM Joe-- don't worry so much! Many of the posted songs are grouped, as the project evolved, by similarity of song*, and no, I do not foresee adding all the lyrics for the Allen, Hampton, or Higginson collections here at Mudcat. (I do keep a copy of thoses collections saved on my puder, in case those sites ever stop offering the spirituals.) Nor do I see any need to add any tune-add threads. It would be silly, since we can index them in the permathread along with links to their location at these other sites. (This is how I handled the Max Hunter gospel material in another thread.) As to posting requirements-- if they are posted at Mudcat, they will certainly follow Mudcat guidelines on collected and posted tunes, and obviously the first two who have responded about helping know these guidelines well. I may offer these MIDIs to the people whose sites contain the collections, first, as well as keeping a set on my computer as I do all the materials in the project, and it may be that what we will post here is just the set of links. I need to know if there will be a result, before I offer the MIDIs to these folks and ask how THEY would like them done. Mmario, Mary, I do want to go over any MIDIs before they are submitted to the Mudcat MIDI page, so please email me anything you work on. There are issues of filenaming, tempo, pickup notes, etc., and I want to be sure these are handled consistently, however many help and however each one goes about their effort. Also, by reviewing each one I will be able to hear how they may relate to melodies used for other spirituals or later blues.... and be sure to post those relationships. I have a theory that tunes floated in much the same way the verses did, now that I have listened to and performed a lot of the Lomax stuff at LOC. Mary, do you want to send me one as a .mid in Cakewalk so I can see how NWC likes it? ~Susan * The reason they are grouped that way, and not by source, is because as we find similar songs in new collections, sources, and recordings, we search up the existing thread for that song (by text/title fragments) and we continue to add the new details there. This has been working well for those of us doing the work as well as for those accessing it. I always enjoy snagging Jerry Rasmussen's interest (by song title) when we pop up an "old" thread; he tells us how he and his group do them now, or offer different variants and recorded versions, and he often has some history/origins stuff to offer since his guys go WAY back in time. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 05:16 PM Well, thanks, Guest. I'd be happy to communicate further; maybe we might arrive at a better understanding! :~) Are you the same Guest who posted in the permathread that since all the posts there are mine, no one else is interested? If so, there were later posts in response to that.... I'm offering this as info-- not rebuke-- about the project details that you might not have been aware of. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 29 Dec 03 - 06:33 PM I sent the first one to Susan. These MIDIs are a little more involved than one might think at first glance. There is syncopation, lots of 1/16 notes, funny words (ones I've never heard before), etc. Plus, there are a few things that Cakewalk does by default that we'll probably have to work around. All in all though, the tunes are very nice, and I'll enjoy learning some of them! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 06:55 PM Hope if your program does not allow for pickup notes you will add rests so the measure dividers match what's online. We can let people match the words up themselves, since they will be able to see the image at the Allen site. IMO our job is just adding clickable sound to what is already a good resource. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 29 Dec 03 - 09:57 PM Encoding these songs seems to me a worthwhile endeavor but I can't see the purpose in the gratuitous requirement for a proprietary format. Why not encode them as ABC per the ABC Plus project and use abc2midi to generate the MIDI files? Then we'll have the songs in a format everyone can use.- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 29 Dec 03 - 10:17 PM Most sites now have MIDIs if they don't have a performance soundfile. And it's going to require a lot of posting if we go with ABC tune add threads, isn't it? Also since they are already notated melody lines, wouldn't it be quicker just to copy and enter them as they are? Can they be converted midi2abc? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:35 AM MIDI files generally don't convert well to other formats because they often lack much of the information expected in a score. It's much better to type the ABC and convert it to MIDI. This is probably faster too since a midi2abc conversion will require a lot of tweaking to get the ABC right. ABC, on the other hand may be typed in very quickly from a simple score such as we see in this effort. Lyrics in ABC may be easily synchronized with the melody as requested and the software needed to produce excellent scores and (possibly rhythmically enhanced) MIDI files is simple to use and free. You can get many more people involved in the effort using ABC notation and make the result useful to more people.- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 06:37 AM Mark, I think the speed bit depends on the user. I for one can not read music and create abc using a graphical programs where I can copy what I see. I use Noteworthy/ abc2nwc and then some tweaking of the abc to get it right with abcm2ps so it takes me longer than producing a MIDI. On the other hand, I think a sight reader who has got to grips with abc will find they can type abc in very quickly. Oveall though, I have thought for some time that MIDI is a throughly bad format for songs... You have mentioned many of the reasons to use abc. Others are in addition to MIDI conversions the project may require, all the songs in a 200 song project could also be supplied in one simple text file and that one can also produce high quality graphics from abc. Also, I don't know the feasibility with the ammount of trafic and demands on processing Mudcat gets but even on the fly conversions may be in the realms of possibility. Here is an example of a project I tried to get going but seemed to die. In this case, I just take a simple abc text file for each child group and extract and process what is requested on demand. It would be a simple step to add the ability to put the songs in any key requested too. The programming required to do such things is very easy. Just putting ideas around and expanding on Mark's thoughts... Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,pavane Date: 30 Dec 03 - 07:25 AM Jon, It might be quicker for you to learn a little music theory then. Learning to 'read the dots' for just a melody shouldn't take very long at all. They teach it to kids learning piano in the first few lessons, after all. I agree that using abc would probably be quicker and easier than direct input to MIDI via a sequencer, especially for adding aligned lyrics. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 07:44 AM Pavane, I knew the theory, at least for reading off a treble and bass clef before learning about it in primary school(Pip/mum plays piano). It's just a "blindness" I have. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Pied Piper Date: 30 Dec 03 - 08:28 AM At the Noteworhy composer site it says that it can export a piece as a mid file. NWC TTFN PP |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 08:57 AM yes - noteworthy can export midi's and with embedded lyrics! with a third party add-on it can also produce ABC files - though they sometimes have to be corrected manually. Jon - I'm still working on Bronson - but have to proofread all my files - and as I *should* have gottom bifocals on my last visit to the eye doctor but didn't - that is a bit difficult at the moment. Pavane - ditto what Jon said - both about producing ABC and reading music! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 09:31 AM Mmario, you can add a pair of cheap reading specs from the drugstore and have instant bifocals. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 30 Dec 03 - 09:58 AM I can read music quite well, and until I started working on some ABC formats at Jon's site, writing a midi was much faster than writing ABC. Now that I've learned a little ABC, it's starting to get faster. All this to say -- Jon was right about "depends on the user." ABC may seem easier, and it may be if you are starting to learn both note reading and ABC from the beginning -- but those of us who have instilled sight reading of notes for many years, and do it quite well, find that easier at this point in time. Susan, I can do either. The point is, these songs are nice, and I enjoy learning them. My main problem today is that I don't have ink for my printer. And even though I can sightread the notes so well I can "hear" the song -- transcribing it is difficult when I can't see a hard copy in front of me -- and for some reason I can't keep two windows open when I use Cakewalk. ************************************ Just another thought here -- IMO, the casual user (me until about a year ago) would get more use from a midi. Usually all I want is to hear a tune quickly. I now use the tune-0-tron at concertina.net to convert an ABC file to a midi quickly. So I can use either format, and it really makes no difference to me. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Jeri Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:47 AM This is just a thought, as I don't have the time or stick-tuitiveness to volunteer: The end product you want is a MIDI. It shouldn't matter what programs people use to create it. If it looks funny when you import it into Noteworthy, it may be Noteworthy that makes it look funny. If it sounds right, it shouldn't matter. In other words, if you listen to it and it sounds fine, then import it into Noteworthy and exclaim "Holy Crap - all those dotted quarter notes should be half notes!" it might just be Noteworthy that did something weird. NOTE: I'm not fond of Noteworthy. I don't like how many steps are required to enter notes and find that Noteworthy-created MIDI files often have shortened note lengths and skewed placement, both with re-play and when I look at it in Cakewalk. Mary, it may be a pain in the neck, but you can right-click on the image of the sheet music to save it, then make it your wallpaper while you're doing the MIDI. (I have no problem having 2 windows open when using Cakewalk, but maybe it's just that the size of the two programs are too big to run together on your machine?) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:00 AM Thanks to all for their thoughts. I guess I don't care what program originates it, as long as I get it as a .mid. I would think that the input should match what is on the Allen site as to note durations, so that anyone accessing it will find easy word match with the Allen site's page image, but if a program alters the note values-- whatever! We do need to name the files by the song numbering at the Allen site ot it will be a mess to organize. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:14 AM Interesting Mary... Good feedback. I've no personal interest in this project, though I think the idea is excellent and really hope it does go through here and have aimed to provide some feedback from what I think I have learned. I think the most important point is that an abc does convert to midi but the reverse need not be true. We have been through much of this before... To sumarise, abc is based on music notation and with projects like the abc plus project, abc can also handle words well. MIDI, was never built to do that it is built on the idea of sending signals like play this note for so many miliseconds now. (MIDI is great at what it does BTW). Another notation possibility Mudcat may like to investigate is Lilypond. It's something I've never had an "in depth" look at but think can do more than abc. My own opinion is that using it would add complexity where there is no need but it has to be said the Yet Another Dt site which offers more in terms of formats than the current MC version does use it... Whatever, best of luck and good wishes with the project, Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:24 AM Jeri, I'd agree if all that was required was a MIDI. I guess part of what I'm thinking in terms of (even though it's nothing to do with me) is how much more you can do with abc. MIDI just gives things like note on/note off instructions and attempts are made from that to construct a score by some programs, all of which may handle things differently. It may not be important for this project but with abc, you still can produce a sound MIDI and for the abc give instructions as where to show slurs, where to beam notes, etc and get close to original documents. Jon (not wanting to argue or to try to push in on a project but wishing others may learn the advantages of the likes of abc for certain tasks and why midi is avoided for some tasks). |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:25 AM Mmario, are you in? If so, what range of song numbers do you want to work on? ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:42 AM yup - I'm in. I'll take pages 55 through 61 - which is songs 74-82 If that's allright? |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,pavane Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:00 PM Actually, my program HARMONY can also produce (straight from abc) MIDI files with embedded lyrics, OR, by a menu option, embedded chord symbols, which can be displayed karaoke style. It can also produce abc from MIDI. It would probably be suitable for the task. (Trial version is at www.greenhedges.com ) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,pavane Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:05 PM Just a thought. If you want a GOOD MIDI, you have to ensure that your software inserts appropriate initialisation (SYSEX and control setting) sequences into the file. Many MIDI programs do not do this, with the result that the equipment may remain incorrectly set up from a previous file. HARMONY always adds a full set of initialisations as used in professional MIDI files. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:17 PM We just want a simple melody line input by people who have software they are comfortable using to do that. Trying to keep it simple. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,pavane Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:56 PM These initialisation codes are not visible to the user, and are always included by Harmony - it takes no effort at all. It is when you DON'T have them in the file that the user may have problems. These can include incorrect instruments, wrong pitch, and a number of other faults. A great many of the MIDI files found on the net do NOT have these codes present, which means that most people who create the files are unaware of the problem, or using software which does not provide the facility. An inexperienced user may not be able to identify and correct the fault, so it is better to be safe. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 12:59 PM yup- I think that may well be some of the problems with Noteworthy midi's - and I have had the problem with some others as well... |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:05 PM But let's make sure we don't get caught in an endless planning loop, and not get any of these entered because we can't agree on the best way to do it. OK? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:12 PM pages are printed and about to be input - but I have to knit 18 more stitches first. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:20 PM LOL! You are a purl! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:24 PM SSUS and a number okay for file name? just a plain number can lead to confusion... So for Example #74 Nobody Know the Trouble I've had would be file SSUS74 |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 01:55 PM I think just SSand the number. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:11 PM and you want just the midi file? or the NWC if we use that? |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:35 PM Do I need NWC for Dick or just .mid? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:43 PM Both, OK? ~S~ Ad: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. Learn about treatment, coping, & help. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:43 PM You'd have to ask him which he prefers. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:54 PM Past instrux on DT tune submits specify NWC for Dick so if that is what you are starting with, go ahead and send me a copy of that too. OK? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 30 Dec 03 - 06:33 PM I'll do songs 1-20 first, maybe more later. These are really pretty tunes; I can't believe I missed these songs earlier. Susan, I'll name them ssandthenumber. (ss1) You can see how they sound and look. I found the lyrics add to be extremely easy, possibly because I have a little experience with ABC lyrics (when to add hyphens, etc). In a few instances I had to interpret what the book meant...They would have one word under two notes, and it was obvious how it should be sung, but I had to divide the word into syllables, and I may not have done that according to correct English grammar. (Where's Masato when we need him? ;-)) Also, I guess you realize that there are repeats in the music, but not in the lyrics...And I'm only putting the first verse in the midi, do you want all verses? Jeri, I managed to finagle the windows so I can see one line of music at a time. It seems that the Cakewalk window won't minimize when I use the staff view option. But I can move the staff view around and minimize the Explorer window and it is workable. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 09:55 PM Yes on the filenaming convention; Mmario & Mary are naming them the same. Mmario has one with a variation that he has named with this convention: ss--b, where the dashes are the song number. Tempo-- err on the side of slow. I've been out all evening and got to hear two of Mmario's real quick, before I left. It sounds obvious to me, tunewise, how a call/response pattern must be involved, although the transcription does not specify this. Melodically, one person just would not sing the two phrases involved putting them together as one song, although it is possible one person did sing it as one song for the purposes of transmitting it to a transcribing collector. (I have presented them the same way myself in fact, when trying to teach them to new audiences; I have to sing my part and theirs, too, until they see the pattern and take their part off my hands.) So on the one I heard in particular, it MUST be a leader/group call/response thing. I'm going to be looking/listening to them one by one as they come in and see if other things emerge from being able to look and hear at the same time. But I can say this already-- as one who has performed many of this genre in recent years, as well as blues gospel-- it makes a huge difference already getting to hear the tune echoing in my head without making any effort at all as a musician to produce it. It sneaks in and makes itself at home and starts me off improvising, just as the genre is meant to do. THESE WERE MEANT TO BE TRANSMITTED BY HEARING, not reading!!!!! This is SO COOL I hope we will be able to get enough people involved to do them ALL. Woo hoo!!!!! My boat floateth. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:26 PM Naming suggestion — Instead of naming files ssn where n is the number assigned by Allen, why don't you agree to use ssnnn where nnn is Allen's assigned number filled to the left with zeros so every file name will be exactly the same length. This will be a big help when people want to sort the songs in sequence. If you don't use the zero fill to a standard length, songs 1, 10, and 100 will come out next to each other as will 11, 110, and so on. Susan, the idea that these songs were somehow especially designed to be learned aurally is probably not correct. The people who made and learned these songs were legally prohibited from gaining literacy. Had they been educated in the use of western notation, I'm guessing they'd have written them down. Not only would they have written them down but I doubt they'd have used the awkard dialect language that Allen employed. Just because they used informal pronunciation in speech and song doesn't necessarily mean they didn't know the proper English word. It's easy for us, white middle class Americans, to forget that depriving people of education doesn't, by itself, make them stupid. And you're quite right about the project being “SO COOL.” I'll play around with some of the tunes and decide whether I think I can offer any useful assistance. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:45 PM Another thought: what is the prefered "'patch” or standard MIDI instrument number for the MIDI files? Grand Piano (000) is probably the default if no instrument is specified. What about the “voice” instruments (052, 053, 054)? Would they enhance a listener's ability to learn to sing the song? Also, the very first song, Roll, Jordan, Roll, includes an alternate melody for measures 5 - 7 where the F# is replaced with an accidental F natural. How do you wish to represent these alternates in the finished product? Allen doesn't seem to prefer one variant over the other but suggests that he collected it both ways, perhaps from among his list of - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:07 PM I had the same question with the variant. Also, my version of Cakewalk won't allow a fermata -- so I took some liberties in adding a measure and some longer notes. That makes it sound right, but I don't like changing the notation. Should we include these notes in some documentation? Or can you fix that, Susan? Also, there were obvious mistakes in several places in the book I followed (the online images). (things like an eighth note when it should have been a dotted eighth, or something similar) Once again, I took the liberty to make it add up to a full measure. I've already mentioned the tempo to Susan. Many of these are in 2/4 time and the Cakewalk default is a little fast...I'd like to hear Jerry sing them! Then one was in 3/4 and sounded a little slow to me. There is no suggestion in the book, so what should be done? *******Note to Cakewalk users: I found that it makes a better (intended notation) transcript if you use "snap." But in syncopation (sixteenth note, eighth note, sixteenth note) it won't accept the eighth note where you want it. My solution is to enter a sixteenth note at that spot, then increase the note lenth to 60. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:08 PM Mark, MIDI is so dependant on the synth/sound card... I'd forget the fussy bits which can sound great on one system but crap on another and settle for grand piano which usualy works out reasonably. Jon (who mourns the loss of an old Yamaha daughter board which made much better sounds than the SB live I have now) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:25 PM Hold the phone folks! I will answer all questions tomorrow. I will be singing my way through them. With all due respect to Jerry, he does black gospel-- later versions of what frequently started out as spirituals, but utually in a much faster tempo than the originals. I do spirituals. I'll comment on tempo of course, to guide the next batch. As far as voices, I'm mulling that, too, and I can adjust them as needed, for instance two voices on a call/response would make sense for contrast. Lemme have a day with the ones already done, OK????!!!!??? Mark-- they were aurally transmitted. If you read Allen's notes, and others from the time, they frequently were made up on the spot when the inspiration struck, and learned only by the people of the immediate area. Like sea chanties (they are after all work songs as well as their other purposes), these songs lived in the moment. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:29 PM PS, that is a great tip on the filenaming, Mark-- Mary, Mmario, can you shift to that style? I'll rename what I have so far. Re: variants-- Mary, suggest you ask Mmario how he handled, ask him to send you a sample of how he's doing them, and you send him yours, too? Nighty night! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 30 Dec 03 - 11:45 PM Mary, as far as I know "snap" is just an entry setting on Cakewalk, a little like a "snap to grid" idea with some graphic programs. The size of this "grid" is set by (I think - can't be bothered to look now) what I think is the "res" setting - the one where you have a drop down list of note lengths. In most cases, if you have that set at 1/32 note, things will work out but on odd occasions you may need to alter a note length the way you describe. If you want to stand any chance of a MIDI displaying on other systems without odd note lengths and positions occuring, I'd be very wary of positioning dots without "snap" and careful over changing lengths. You can make things sound "perfect" - the beauty of MIDI but in the process put a note lets say on 1.23 beats and make it a 1.7 note... Things impossible with notation. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Pied Piper Date: 31 Dec 03 - 07:07 AM I don't think you need more than a GM re-set message, and I play mid files made on my trusty old Atari ST without any sysex info with no problems. TTFN PP |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 31 Dec 03 - 07:53 AM Jon, what I meant was, with snap on, the eighth note is displayed simultaneously with the first sixteenth note. (I'm not sure how it sounds. Also, I'm not sure what the resolution is, but it's the best for the notes I'm entering.) When I enter a sixteenth note and then increase its length to an eighth note, it will be adjacent to the first sixteenth note and appear as an eighth note (and have the right sound). I also notice this problem when there are a lot of rests and syncopation. It's possible to change the resolution for a few measures, but for me it's just easier to enter a note at the correct position, then change its length. I like the numbering idea too. I noticed on one song that there was a "harmony" note in one place in the melody line. I left it out because it sounded confusing. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 31 Dec 03 - 08:22 AM Susan, I noticed this comment on the page where the scans are: We had some thought of indicating with each the tempo of the different songs, but have concluded to print special directions for singing by themselves. It should be remarked, however, that the same tune varied in quickness on different occasions. "As the same songs," writes Miss McKim, "are sung at every sort of work, of course the tempo is not always alike... |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 31 Dec 03 - 08:52 AM as far as variants go - the one I have done so far was several measures; and had an indicated place of origin - so I did it up as a seperate midi. I noticed in one tune that the transcriber had indicated a variant by stem direction. I went with the notes that followed the stem direction of the main tune. As with folk tunes - these midis can only be a guide - In the section on singing the tunes the author mentions that temp could vary widely between singers or occasions. Likewise the variations on a tune are sometimes due to the words of the particular verse. My feeling is the midi's will be an asset and guide - but can't indicate EVERY variation - at least not without extensive additional notes - much of which would probably be guesswork at this remove. (My opinion - but backed by what I have read about spirituals, gospel, folk, etc in various collectors books) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 31 Dec 03 - 09:28 AM I agree. A good rule of thumb is to do the ones particularly designated as work songs, in a capstan shanty or walking tempo. More later as I review them in conjunction with text notes. Mark, are you going to try a few? ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 31 Dec 03 - 09:56 AM Sorry Mary. I didn't understand you and didn't even on your second explaination. I have just tried entering the first one "Hear From Heaven To-day" and now I do understand and also have found some of what I said about res, was wrong (sorry faulty memory here). All goes ok until I reach the A under heaven. With "snap" on, Cakewalk will always want to put an 1/8 note in an 1/8 note slot and this 1/8 note falls on the smaller 1/16 note slot. I'd do exactly the same as you in these instances, ie. put a 1/16 note in it with snap on so the note comes in exactly the right spot and then change it's length. The alternative is to turn snap off and enter the 1/8 note but that can be tricky to get it to exactly the right spot - you need to watch the bar number/positions carefully - in that example it would need to land on "4:02:030". Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 31 Dec 03 - 11:07 AM Here's a list - BOLD titles have been submitted -proofed and reported "okay" titles will be reported in a seperate list. PART I. 1 Roll, Jordan, roll 2 Jehovah, Hallelujah 3 I hear from Heaven to-day. 4 Blow your trumpet, Gabriel 4b Second version 5 Praise, member 6 Wrestle on, Jacob 7 The Lonesome Valley 8 I can't stay behind 9 Poor Rosy 10 The Trouble of the World 11 There's a meeting here to-night 11b Second version 12 Hold your light 13 Happy Morning 14 No man can hinder me 14b Second version 15 Lord, remember me 16 Not weary yet 17 Religion so sweet 18 Hunting for the Lord 19 Go in the wilderness 20 Tell my Jesus "Morning." 21 The Graveyard 21b Variation 22 John, John, of the Holy Order 23 I saw the beam in my sister's eye 24 Hunting for a city 25 Gwine follow 26 Lay this body down 27 Heaven bell a-ring 28 Jine 'em 29 Rain fall and wet Becca Lawton 30 Bound to go 30b Second version 31 Michael row the boat ashore 32 Sail, O believer 33 Rock o' Jubilee 34 Stars begin to fall 35 King Emanuel 36 Satan's Camp A-fire 37 Give up the world 38 Jesus on the Waterside 39 I wish I been dere 40 Build a house in Paradise 41 I know when I'm going home 42 I'm a trouble in de mind 43 Travel on 44 Archangel, open the door 45 My body rock 'long fever 45b Second Version 46 Bell da ring 47 Pray all de member 48 Turn sinner, turn O 49 My army cross over 49b Second Version 50 Join the angel band 50b Variation 51 I and Satan had a race 52 Shall I die? 53 When we do meet again 54 The White Marble Stone 54b Second Version 55 I can't stand the fire 55b Second Version 56 Meet, O Lord 57 Wai', Mr. Mackright 58 Early in the morning 58b Variation 59 Hail, Mary 59b Second Version 60 No more rain fall for wet you 61 I want to go home 62 Good-bye, brother 63 Fare ye well 64 Many thousand go 65 Brother Moses gone 66 The Sin-sick Soul 67 Some Valiant Soldier 68 Hallelu, Hallelu 69 Children do linger 70 Good-bye 71 Lord, make me more patient 72 The Day of Judgment 73 The Resurrection Morn 74 Nobody knows the trouble I've had 75 Who is on the Lord's side 76 Hold out to the end 77 Come go with me 78 Every hour in the day 79 In the mansions above 80 Shout on, children 81 Jesus, won't you come by-and-by? 82 Heave away PART II. 83 Wake up, Jacob 84 On to Glory 85 Just Now 86 Shock along, John 87 Round the corn, Sally 88 Jordan's Mills 89 Sabbath has no end 90 I don't feel weary 91 The Hypocrite and the Concubine 92 O shout away 93 O'er the Crossing 93b Variation 94 Rock o' my Soul 95 We will march thro' the valley 96 What a trying time 97 Almost Over 98 Don't be weary, traveller 99 Let God's saints come in 100 The Golden Altar 101 The Winter 102 The Heaven Bells PART III. 103 The Gold Band 104 The Good Old Way 105 I'm going home 106 Sinner won't die no more 107 Brother, guide me home 108 Little children, then won't you be glad? 109 Charleston Gals 110 Run, nigger run 111 I'm gwine to Alabamy PART IV. 112 My Father, how long? 113 I'm in trouble 114 O Daniel 115 O brother, don't get weary 116 I want to join the band 117 Jacob's Ladder 118 Pray on 119 Good news, Member 120 I want to die like-a Lazarus die 121 Away down in Sunbury 122 This is the trouble of the world 123 Lean on the Lord's side 124 These are all my Father's children 125 The Old Ship of Zion 125b Second version 126 Come along, Moses 127 The Social Band 128 God got plenty o' room 129 You must be pure and holy 130 Belle Layotte 131 Remon 132 Aurore Bradaire 133 Caroline 134 Calinda 135 Lolotte 136 Musieu Bainjo |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 31 Dec 03 - 11:21 AM Mary is doing a batch in the first group of songs (1-20), and has submitted 2-7 inclusive. If another volunteer wants in, just name a song-number range you will be tackling, other than what Mary and Mmario have listed that they are doing. I'm reviewing them as I get them, just to hear them, with MidiNotate. When I do, I find I'm slowing most of them down to about 70-85% of how you two have done them so far. Once I've "caught" several of the tunes and can estimate a singable pace, I'll let you know what tempo I think that might be as an average. It's not too hard to change tempo in the file, so you can go ahead and keep entering melodies while I futz around on my end. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 31 Dec 03 - 01:04 PM Another question. I know these songs were made to be sung a capella but would it useful to add chord notation? Neil Jennings’ program, HARMONY, does a dandy job of adding chord names to an ABC file and the abc2midi program can turn the chord names into a nice rhythmic accompaniment behind the melody. This treatment might be an aid to learning.- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 31 Dec 03 - 01:44 PM Not on this round.... although when I do these in church, sometimes I do use MidiNotate similarly to suggest chords. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 31 Dec 03 - 02:29 PM Have #1 from Mary also. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:30 PM Okay, check me out here and see if any of this is close to what is wanted. I've included the ABC and a MIDI for the tune I assume you'll call ss001, Roll, Jordan, Roll. Please select and copy the ABC code and paste it in at Tune-O-Tron: Converter, press Submit and click on the [PDF Sheet Music] link. You can listen to the MIDI there as well or listen to the MIDIs I've posted below. I've tried to keep the notes separate, as Allen did, rather than use ties and bars to improved readability. I assume Allen was working with a limited engraving capability rather than limited music knowledge. The MIDI text and ABC at the bottom doesn't contain the synchronized lyrics but should contain the correct MIDI events. I haven't listened to the MID2TXT output, only the original MIDI input. Looking at the output, it looks like MID2TXT also destroyed the original measure construction when it attempts to recreate ABC directly from MIDI input.
- Mark The MIDI file is here. MIDI file: ss001.mid Timebase: 480 Text: @KMIDI KARAOKE FILE This program is worth the effort of learning it. To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here ABC format: X:1
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:36 PM Mark, can you email me the .mid of that? If please PM for addy. Otherwise, can anyone else send it to me as .mid? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: pavane Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:13 AM Thanks Mark. Note that as well as adding the chords, HARMONY can add an accompaniment in a selected style, including percussion, and write the whole as a MIDI. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:03 PM Susan, I sent you Roll, Jordan, Roll before I started naming them with numbers. I called it rollj.mid Mine sounds like Mark's. (Except, in the 6th full measure that should be an F# instead of an E...an F natural in the variant.) Which reminds me of another idea: I like to have someone proofread my submissions since I can't seem to see my own typos, but I'm fairly decent at finding other folks' typos. Also, the notation from my midi appears a little different from Mark's. Mine has the groups of two eighth notes or four sixteenth notes connected with a bar. And I didn't put in slurs. Be sure to take a look at them and see which you like best. Mine might have to be doctored a little with another program. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:42 PM Mary, Thanks for the proofreading. I touch-typed the ABC while looking only at Allen's score and clearly didn't profread it carefully enough. The ABC standard specifies that you can defeat automatic bars by separating the notes with one or more spaces. Normally, I'd type the ABC so that bars are used but I was trying to duplicate Allen's score for purely academic purposes. I also included the repeats that Allen specified although it makes my MIDI file longer than it needs to be. At first glance, I thought Allen didn't have bar lines available to him for publication but as I scan down the list, I see he does use bar lines in some cases. Perhaps the notation was hurriedly scribbled down during an actual performance and the engraver just duplicated Allen's notes without asking any questions. Susan sent me your MIDI file so I can compare them and try to have mine approximate yours. Mine really should have included a repeat-to line and dots at the beginning of measure one. I didn't put it in because I wanted to match Allen's printed score. Since we don't really care about the engraved score for this effort, I can encode the ABC especially to produce MIDI files and have a result similar or identical to yours. In song number 1, Roll, Jordan, Roll, Allen seems to indicate that each verse is sung twice followed by twice through the refrain. Is that the way you read it? One aspect of my MIDI file is that I think it can be used as a karaoke file without changes. Just change the .mid extension to .kar and I think it could be used in a karaoke machine or PC karaoke program. I don't know whether that's a useful feature but it should work.- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:43 PM (If we are boring folks, or if this really isn't appropriate for a general discussion...I'll take all my questions to PM!) Mark, I'm glad you brought up the repeats. I haven't been putting them in: 1) because if you look at the words written below the song...I'm really not sure how it's sung...unless you repeat the words also...which I doubt. I really don't understand that notation. 2) and also, my version of Cakewalk won't let me put in repeats (without just copying and pasting the entire section.) Another liberty I took...when it starts a new section with a pick-up note...I just put the pick up note in the previous measure...ie., the midi just keeps going. Take a look at #10 please. Even though the notes say it's almost impossible to notate that one..........there are triplets and rests within the triplet.......at one point I just had to change the length of a note, but the notation wouldn't print it! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:44 AM I'll just post one more ABC tune here so you can check me out. I've sent the MIDI file to Susan.
- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 02 Jan 04 - 02:13 AM Mary, how did you compare your version with Mark's? I'm only asking as to the best of my knowledge, MIDI contains no information as to how to beam notes together. I thought things like beaming you may see with a MIDI is program dependant. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:45 AM Mark, what song-number range do you want to work on, so we don't duplicate efforts? BTW I've found a contact at the Allen site; we've begun corresponding. News when I have it. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:16 PM I sent you nos. 21 and 22 late last night. If they see acceptable to you, I'll just continue down the page. I have Mary as working on 1-20 and Mmario as working on 74-82. I'm not aware, from reading this thread, that any other range is being worked. I'm perfectly happy to do any range that's useful, I don't have any prefered group. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Jan 04 - 02:17 PM OK, Mark go for it. Mmario seems to have started now in the 129+ range, and just sent me 129-136. We have over 30 of these done and ready for me to review/adjust/etc. What a quick start! What a team! Whoo-hoo! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 02 Jan 04 - 04:21 PM I've finished through #11. As far as variants, I make another midi if it is several phrases, and I number it with a "B" added to the song number. I don't bother if it's just a few changed notes. Jon, I put Mark's ABC in the tune-o-tron. The appearance in the score was derived from his ABC. I visualized my midi in the Cakewalk program, staff view, which I use to make the midi. (I don't think Cakewalk will allow me to enter the notes without a beam.) I also solved the fermata problem. I just change the tempo drastically (very slow) for one beat. I'm anxious to hear all these. The ones I've worked on are really pretty. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 02 Jan 04 - 05:05 PM Thanks Mary, that explains it. As I said above, I'm pretty sure that MIDI can not hold that sort of info. I obviously can't confirm but I suspect (apart from any transcription errors or conversion errors) that if you had viewed the MIDI from that abc in Cakewalk, you would have seen the same as yours. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 02 Jan 04 - 05:59 PM You're right. I snagged the midi from my temp files and looked at it in Cakewalk. But...something else...it did not show the first note as a pick up note as it was in the ABC. hmmmmmm... So what does that mean? Is the tune-o-tron generated midi not as precise as a Cakewalk generated midi? Susan, do my midis look OK in Noteworthy? Note to everyone else -- the midis all sound the same. We're just talking about what the scores look like when they are printed. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:01 PM As I look at them in MidiNotate they look OK. The closer look in NWC will start Monday. They SOUND wonderful! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:31 PM Mary, I see what you mean about no. 10. I tried to encode it just to see what I get. I found that ABC can't handle four symbols in a triplet so I coded the second triplet in measure 4 as three notes with the second one dotted. That worked out all right for the engraved score but the MIDI conversion gave me a warning that there were notes of different value in a triplet. You can play with mine if you like.
- Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 02 Jan 04 - 10:26 PM I've finished through #18. Mark, if it's OK with you, I'll do 31 - 40 after I finish #20. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Jan 04 - 10:40 PM Are you people addicted???? Good! :~) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 02 Jan 04 - 11:24 PM That's fine with me, Mary. It looks as though MMario is updating the list in his post of 31 Dec 03 - 11:07 AM. I'll keep checking back to see what hasn't been submitted. Question on #27 — Is this whole song really just four bars long? The second staff line seems, rhythmically, to be a variant of the first staff line. But what about the third staff line? It seems to contain two independent two-bar segments. are these two segments alternates for each other? And do they follow the main four bars of the song? - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 12:48 AM Re: 27-- some clues on Page xvi and Page xxii of the introductory notes in the site. I sort of understand what they are saying in these notes, but I'm too tired now to give you an example-- maybe Mmario can give a parallel structure for a shanty. I can try to be more helpful tomorrow; as to how to set it up as a MIDI I would say just input it as it appears in the page image. I can rework it once we have a better idea how it fits together, and that will come as I sing each of these through. Good question! Verrrry interesting! Gosh, what care you are all takig with these-- what faithful stewards of this amazing legacy. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 12:52 AM oops, more-- 27-- see also notes on Page xliv and Page 21, and compare #27 against 28 & 48. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 03 Jan 04 - 02:01 AM I sent off 21-30 with the exception of #27. I'll start working 51-73 if no one else wants those. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 03 Jan 04 - 07:05 AM Mary: Is the tune-o-tron generated midi not as precise as a Cakewalk generated midi? Susan, do my midis look OK in Noteworthy? The tune-o-tron uses abc2midi to convert. I have found this program to be very reliable at producing midi to listen to but have never looked at the output in Cakewalk. Cakewalk does differ from abc followed by abc2midi and Noteworthy for that matter in that it is dedicated sequencing software. OK Cakewalk does have it's own format as well as MIDI but everything is event based. The other 2 systems mentioned are notation systems that can produce a MIDI. If I was to analyse a MIDI and found there were descrepancies, Cakewalk would be the 1 of the 3 I trust. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 09:16 AM Mmario-- list updates: 8-17 inclusive, incl listed variations 23-26 28-30 74b I don't have 83 Can we number the variations like the rest? It would make skimming the list a little easier on the eye. You guys are GREAT! Thanks also to our thread-clone! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 09:17 AM I take it back-- I do have 83. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 10:35 AM May I suggest a bit of navel-gazing and experience-sharing among this happy anarchy, as I have come to think of our "team"? Question for you MIDI-makers. Have you spent any amount of time (how much) looking over the introductory material that precedes the table of contents? There's quite a bit of reference to individual songs in there. I'm not saying you SHOULD read all that before transcribing for MIDI-- just curious about your processes, and wanting to know if you have NOT looked in there much, on individual songs, because if not then I will as I review the MIDIs. I'm finding I have to read the intro over and over for it to sink in-- such a different world we live in now, it's hard to get it all to stick. Like building a new place in my head to set these characters and their songs and lives onto the stage, then I can watch them, listen to them, learn as I observe, and come back into NOW with a synthesis, an integration of understanding. It's a lot to wrap my arms around, if you know what I mean. So I am curious if you've gone there too, in the intro, or if you are standing more in NOW and just looking at the dots? Strange, this project, in a good way. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 03 Jan 04 - 12:52 PM I've just had a look at Mary's #10. I've never seen anything like that. Is it valid notation? I thought a triplet was 3 notes of the same type in the time of 2. I think if I was trying to handle it in abc, my own choice would be to just give a straight triplet and add a N: entry to explain what I'd done and why. If I was using MIDI as the main purpose (something to listen to), I would need to know how it sounded. I would then adjust lengths to suit that and forget any thoughts as to how it looked. Not saying any of this is right, just giving what I think I would do with 2 very different objectives in mind. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 03 Jan 04 - 02:35 PM Susan, I confess that I've spent almost no time with the verbiage. I started out playing with the dots to see if my MIDIs would be useful for your purpose. After that I just kept working on the MIDIs. I'll go back and see if I find help in Allen's descriptions. I find Allen hard to read because his view of the people who sang the songs is so stilted and condescending. He constantly refers to them as barbaric and, I'm sure, regarded them as sub-human. He seems awestruck that such people could make music that his highly developed European ear would find attractive. Given the time and circumstances, his attitude isn't surprising but that makes it no less offensive. As I work on the tunes I think of the people who made them, not Allen, et al. Jon, As you recognized, the second triplet in bar 4 of song #10 actually contains the correct total time value for three eighth notes in the space of two only the third eighth note (quaver?) is further broken down into a sixteenth rest and a sixteenth note (semiquaver?). I don't imagine Allen, et al. thought this was correct notation. I just think they were trying to use the notation they had available to represent rhythms they'd never heard before. African people have greatly enriched the rhythmic and melodic possibilities of the music we all love today. But in Allen's time, I suspect these rhythmic variations were completely unknown to white people. In the verbiage, Allen, et al. give the following: The best that we can do, however, with paper and types, or even with voices, will convey but a faint shadow of the original. The voices of the colored people have a peculiar quality that nothing can imitate; and the intonations and delicate variations of even one singer cannot be reproduced on paper. And I despair of conveying any notion of the effect of a number singing together, especially in a complicated shout, like "I can't stay behind, my Lord" (No. 8), or "Turn, sinner, turn O!" (No. 48). There is no singing in parts, as we understand it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing--the leading singer starts the words of each verse, often improvising, and the others, who "base" him, as it is called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the solo, when the words are familiar. When the "base" begins, the leader often stops, leaving the rest of his words to be guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the other singers. And the "basers" themselves seem to follow their own whims, beginning when they please and leaving off when they please, striking an octave above or below (in case they have pitched the tune too low or too high), or hitting some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this strange network is that, like birds, they seem not infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely represented by the gamut, and abound in "slides from one note to another, and turns and cadences not in articulated notes." "It is difficult," writes Miss McKim, "to express the entire character of these negro ballads by mere musical notes and signs. The odd turns made in the throat, and the curious rhythmic effect produced by single voices chiming in at different irregular intervals, seem almost as impossible to place on the score as the singing of birds or the tones of an Æolian Harp." There are also apparent irregularities in the time, which it is no less difficult to express accurately, and of which Nos. 10, 130,131, and (eminently) 128, are examples.I'm guessing that scholars today would have a much easier time transcribing what Allen heard because we are accustomed to the rhythmic variation that so confounded Allen. Or else I'm full of crap and this post is just rubbish. <g> - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 02:44 PM I don't read him as condescending; rather, quite awestruck and aware of the humanity. I don't think "barbaric" had quite the pejorative edge we ascribe to it from today's perspective. YMMV. I don't mind if you don't read that stuff, you know; I'm just thrilled we are doing this, however we are doing it. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 02:50 PM Mark-- Tip for finding song details buried in the intro verbiage-- use FIND IN PAGE for the song number you're looking at, and you can easily find any comments on whatever pertains. That's what I did last night on your #27 question. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 03 Jan 04 - 04:49 PM Ha, I just looked at my midi for #10 again, and I think I'll change it a little. Somehow I managed to get close to the mathematical representation in the event list, but after "careful mathematical analysis" (she says while full o' crap) I'd like to make a minor change. Jon, a triplet is usually 3 notes to one beat. For instance, in Cakewalk you can use the little "3" in the upper left of the staff notation in conjunction with a note value (such as an eighth note) to insert 3 equally spaced notes to one beat. In 4/4 time, if you did this on the first beat they would each have a length of 40 (because a quarter note has 120 ticks) and they would occur at 1:1:000, 1:1:040, and 1:1:080...each having a length of 40. Playing 3 against 2 is similar, but much harder. The most famous example I know (Pip would know this one) is in Claire de Lune on the piano when the left hand plays 1 & 2 &......and the right hand has to fit 3 notes for every 2 in the left hand. You play the first two notes at the same time (hands together), then the next righthand note, then the next lefthand note, then the last righthand note. It's one of those things where you just have to go into right brain thinking and let it go on automatic! Back to the 4th measure in #10 of the Spirituals. The last triplet in that measure has, instead of 3 eighth notes (as a triplet)...eighth note, eighth note, sixteenth rest, sixteenth note...all under the "3" signifying a triplet. My best solution is to go into the event listing and put the notes at 4:2:000, 4:2:040, and 4:2:100. The first two notes have a length of 40, and the last note has a length of 20. This is mathematically correct, but the notation comes out, sixteenth, eighth, sixteenth. Another note to the Merry Midi Makers -- when there are two voices, I make a second track (channel 2) with a clarinet voice. The main track is channel 1 and has the grand acoustic piano voice. I like the clarinet voice because it sounds good on my inferior sound card. Susan, I'll have to look again and PM you which ones have that. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 03 Jan 04 - 05:10 PM Mark, just responding to your question marks after the note lengths. Yes, you have that right; eigth note = quaver, sixteenth = semi-quaver from there we have a demisemi-quaver and hemisemidemi-quaver. I have read somewhere that a 1/128 note becomes a quasihemisemidemiquaver! For my part even though I'm a UKer, I do perfer what I tend to call the US system. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 03 Jan 04 - 05:20 PM After reading more of the explanations, here is what I've concluded on No. 27. The second staff line is intended to be an alternate to the first. The third staff line contains two two-measure segments, each of which is intended as alternates to the last two measures of the first staff line (and perhaps to the second as well). When these measures are substituted, the lyrics change as indicated. The last measures of all these alternates are missing the final quaver. I assume the missing quaver is the pickup beat we see in the first staff line. So the song really is a four-bar line repeated over and over but with variations. Accurate representation of the documented alternates will require six separate MIDI files. Maybe I'll put them all into one file with several measures of rest in between. Mary, Did you convert my attempt at #10, above, into a MIDI using the Tune-O-Tron Converter? Does my solution work out when imported into Cakewalk? - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 03 Jan 04 - 05:52 PM Mark, it looks like mine in the notation...sixteenth, eighth, sixteenth. And in the event list, it's close...but that second note has a longer duration than the first note, and there is no rest. The tune-o-tron makes the length of an eighth note 59 (instead of 60...I guess so various instruments can catch their breath and sound repeated notes). My event list has a note of length 40, a note of length 40, then a "rest" of length 20, then a note of length 20. Yours has a note of length 39, a note of length 59, then a note of length 19. They both sound pretty much the same except for the rest in mine. (and you have to slow the midi down to even hear it) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 03 Jan 04 - 05:59 PM Jon, I just noticed your comment about triplets: I thought a triplet was 3 notes of the same type in the time of 2. You are talking "notes" and I was talking "beats." |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 03 Jan 04 - 07:20 PM Exactly Mary. I went through an exercise myself on that one having read your post. It does seem to me that both yours and my thoughts can equally hold true, eg. to use this #10, if we looked at the tune in 2/4 we can say there are 2 beats of 1/4 note and the triplet is made of made of 1/8 notes so if we said there was a 2nd triplet starting at the expected 2nd beat and made of 1/8 notes, the 3 would make up one of the beat in the bar. You are much better at maths that me but for what it's worth, I do agree with your Cakewalk "sums". Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Jan 04 - 09:18 PM Mark, if you have not already done 27, I think the best thing to do would be to make one longish MIDI showing the variations as they would be sung... as if you were doing several verses adding variations where you think they might feel right. If you can lyric-match, you can be the boat man! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 03 Jan 04 - 11:41 PM Two copies of #27 left here at 5:31 PM CST, one to each of your email addresses as requested. Your post (9:18) was nearly three hours later. I'm surprised you haven't seen it. When you do see it, you'll find that all variations are in a single MIDI file and with synced lyrics as usual. I put four measures of rest in between the variations as separators. I also sent a PDF of the score so you could see what I was doing. One question I haven't asked though… I've only been lyric-matching the first verse of the songs. The remaining verses have been set below the score. Would you prefer each verse lyric-matched in between the staffs like a church hymnal? Another question has to do with MIDI's representation of key signatures. Some of the songs are in Mixolydian mode and I've been entering them that way. When you process the MIDI files, is the mode retained in any way except to note the sharps and flats? Some of the songs use the fermata (bird's eye) and I've been carefully entering those as well. What I don't know is how the fermata is expressed in the MIDI file. Hopefully they come through properly. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 12:00 AM Yes I know you have been putting lyrics in, I just thought it would be a challenge on that particular song because the music they show is so vague. (I had posted before checking email-- Mudcat always comes up first, then mail.) At first I thought I only got the PDF for 27, and saw no MIDI attached, but I just looked again and it is there. Something about the way the message displayed only showed the one attachment-- I dunno what's up with that! Not counting multiple/reworked submissions, PDFs and NWCs duplicating the MIDIs, we have 57 of these things done! I ought to count up who has done how many, but I have not kept track that way. This is great work you are doing. I feel so lucky to be working with you all. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 12:27 AM Marl-- Sorry-- I AM tired!-- you asked: One question I haven't asked though… I've only been lyric-matching the first verse of the songs. The remaining verses have been set below the score. Would you prefer each verse lyric-matched in between the staffs like a church hymnal? Lord no! We're all getting old too fast to take THAT much time! Just the first verse so it's easy to see how the tune falls on the text. I'm not having any trouble transferring the learned tune to the succeeding verses, even just on first read/hear of the MIDI and lyric. In fact, you do not really need to add the rest of the verses below the score. It might be a help to someone who wants to play from the printout of the MIDI, but IMO anyone wanting to perfrom these is going to have their work cut out for them unless they stick with unaccompanied singing from a word-sheet, and they will have to customize the songs with a lot of lyric adaptations. They should do that work themselves-- I know I will have to! Also, including more than the verse printed in the page image might verge on an uncomfortable copyright problem-- Dover does still have the book in print I believe, unless those were remaindered copies I saw at Elderly for about 8 bucks! The folks at DocSouth (the site with the collection posted) are very nervous about anything appearing to suggest copyright trespasses. What I am hoping they will decide to run is just a single page of links as an appendix to their existing book material, a menu by song number that you could open in a separate window while looking at the page itself, and click to play the tune. Remember, for a lot of people, they will never see the MIDI itself, because it will tend to open itself in Windows Media Player or WinAMp. If the user is sophisticated enough to open it in a notation program, IMO they will be sophisticated enough to modify it for their own use. Thus they will have made "fair use" (IMO) of the material-- personal study and their own lyric and arrangement, so no trespass on the print version or the now-out-of-print Jerry Silverman arrangements. Anyway that's how I hope the DocSouth people will see it. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,Jon Date: 04 Jan 04 - 12:59 AM Mark, the references I have found on MIDI seem to suggest meta event hex 59 for key signatures. It appears to have "sf" in a range of -7 to + 7 to indicate the no of sharps and flats and "mi" in range 0 to 1 to indicate whether a tune is minor or major. My version of Cakewalk appears to only consider major keys, at least for purposes of entry. The only one I looked at with that was the Blacksmith from our site where it is given as DDor - if I go to the Cakewalk thing to change key, the existing entry is C major. I could be wrong but I would guess for example that DMix simply gets converted to G, etc. Again, I'm not sure but I suspect abc is pretty unusual in its recognition of the modes. Phil Taylor once sorted us out at folkinfo on getting all our abcs showing correctly using Barfly which is able to suggest the most likely mode for a tune but I'm not sure where we stand now - I know I for one am not capable of recognising most of them. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 04 Jan 04 - 01:26 AM Thanks, Jon. I'm pretty shakey on mode recognition myself. But when a tune has a single F# as a key signature (key of G major) but the melody always resolves on a D, I figure it's Dmix even without trying to sing or play the tune. Of course a musician sight reading the lead sheet probably wouldn't care, they'd just think of it as one sharp and let it go at that. But perhaps programs like Neil Jennings' HARMONY would generate different chords and harmonies for Dmix and Gmaj. Susan, I'm no expert on copyright but I think anything copyrighted in 1867 is now safely in the public domain. That doesn't mean that more recent dirivative works aren't protected but the original work has surely passed all copyright expiration criteria. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: pavane Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:36 AM Yes, HARMONY does generate different chords for modes, but you need to tell it the tune is modal, by the key (K:) command. Harmony also does do a check when generating chords, and puts up a warning if the key signature appears to be incorrect, based on start and end notes. If possible, it suggests a possible key or mode. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: pavane Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:41 AM And yes, you are right. MIDI does not have any separate way of representing modes. The analysis of code (hex)59 is correct. This is a 'meta-event' and is just documentary, it has no effect on the sound produced. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 11:40 AM Mark, since Dover republished the book, I would bet there's a new copyright from that date..... but so much of what Dover publishes, they OK for additional non-commercial use, so I'd want to see the book and what they say on it about copyright. Joe Offer has it; maybe he'll wander in. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 11:58 AM List update: I now have: 19 Go in the wilderness 20 Tell my Jesus "Morning" 20b Tell my Jesus "Morning" variation 27 Heaven bell a-ring 31 Michael row the boat ashore 32 Sail, O believer 33 Rock o' Jubilee It would be helpful to get a clone note inserted in my update messages when the updates are done, or a date of update in the updated list. Mmario's initial note was that the title would be removed when proofing and editing was done on any tune. I'd prefer a separate list for that process-- I'd like to leave the list itself intact. OK? Thanks, all! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 04 Jan 04 - 02:59 PM I just finished 31 thru 40. I'll do 41 thru 50 next. So far: (not finished, but working on...) 1-20 Mary 21-30 Mark 31-40 Mary 41-50 Mary 51-73 Mark 74-82 MMario 129-136 MMario |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 03:17 PM TEAM: And what is Miss Susan doing????? I'm going through the text notes, annotating each song with my little pencil, according to the introductory notes. This will give me some guidance as I listen and critique (cringe) the MIDIs. When I get into the song-by-song review, do y'all want me to do alterations, or do you want us to discuss them first song by song, or do you want to do them yerselves with just general guidance/suggestions from me? In other words, how shall we continue this happy, cooperative anarchy once the raw inputting is done? Do you want to proof each other's inputs before I go through them? However, is fine with me! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 04 Jan 04 - 04:13 PM Susan, I meant to tell you that I've left all the tempos at the Cakewalk default, which in 2/4 time is IMO a little fast. But I haven't read many of the notes. On "Michael Row the Boat Ashore, #31" I think I read where there were typically a certain number of rows when working against the current ;-) I'll defer to your judgment! I would like to somehow proof them though, since I can't easily see my own typos. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 04 Jan 04 - 05:53 PM I've been setting all tempos at 90 crotchets per minute. This is rather like the Mad Hatter's watch, when you hear one that sounds exactly right, it's supposed be sung at 90 crotchets per minute. I'll be happy to make changes and corrections if you'd like. That way I'll have corrected ABC files which I regard as more valuable than the MIDIs. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 06:14 PM OK. I'm finding about 80 is the max for tempo on most. I'm going to check out some shanty tempos too, for the rowing songs/shouts. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:41 PM I finished 41 thru 50. I'll probably be away for a few days... I'll see what needs to be done later. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: MMario Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:47 PM WOW! you guys have done a lot! |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:59 PM My hard drive runneth over! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:31 PM Should be: 74-83 MMario Let's see, Mark's working on 51-73... That leaves: 1-50 done 51-73 under way 74-83 done 84-128 not yet claimed 129-135 done I have undertaken a new filenaming convention on my end only. As I get them and save them, I add your intials to the filename-- ss001mk was done by Mary in Kentucky, the mm's are done by Mmario, the mc's by Mark. (The M-Squad!) This means that if you get one back from me, you will know who did it, you will know I have at least listened to it and found no glaring weirdnesses in it, and you will know that it may have been altered by me as to tempo, repeats, lyrics corrected/added. You will know you can save it without losing your original version, and it will make it easier for me to send you each others' inputs for a quick proof check. Then as you resend them to me you can add to the filename-- add The order in which I review them more carefully (my immediately-next round, starting tomorrow) will be according to the groupings in the intro, where the songs are given some description as to the type they were-- shouts, rowing songs, organized worship, secular, etc.-- or the origin, as in some that are marked as probably-all-original or probably-partially-derived from white music. Follow me? I need your ideas for naming a type-- the slow ones. Moans, Mourns? Laments? Groans? You know what I mean? Some of these only sound TRUE melodically if they go way slow, and the words for these are pretty dark. Whaddaya wanna christen them? (Later they founded the blues.) Slower than a shout, slower than a rowing song, really SLOW. Excruciants? We need a word to refer to these among ourselves. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST Date: 04 Jan 04 - 09:01 PM Mark, with sound being the issue for this project, this is off topic and I don't know your feelings on the subject but later versions of abcm2ps do allow "%%printtempo 0". This IMO can be useful if you want to suggest a tempo for a MIDI but do not want to presume or suggest that your Q: tempo suggestion is authorative or show it in print. Jon |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 05 Jan 04 - 12:50 AM Jon, Thanks for the tip. I can see that feature will be useful. Susan, I just sent you a few more. They should show up soon. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 05 Jan 04 - 08:07 AM dolefuls? |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 05 Jan 04 - 08:12 AM I'll be working backworkd from 129 |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Jan 04 - 08:26 AM Mark's 51-54 with variations, received. Go MMario! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Jan 04 - 11:58 AM OK, I am into the next layer of working on these, studying the text notes that precede the Table of COntents (TOC). I had to completely reorganize, enlarge, and refurnish my home office to be ready to work today! I've cross-referenced the notes into the song pages so that as I get to each song I can check back on the commentary.... there is some clear guidance on xliii &ff about fitting text to tune, refrain lines/choruses; I read this as congruent with my experience of the genre in general where what Allen is calling the refrain equates to the response part of a call/response pattern, where there may or may not also be a consistent chorus that includes or builds on the refrain (response). In addition to using the commentary hints, I anticipate that as I absorb each tune in my head it will arrange itself into the kind of pattern I know from working with other spirituals and hundreds of black gospel songs, extensions from the spirituals or founded in them.... my goal is to "catch" what the songs meant to the people, and the feelings that underlay the song structures, so that as I work on them I can let them move in their own way. I am so grateful to the Lomaxes for the LOC collection of authentically-sung spirituals! That's my main Berlitz school for the tune-language and structural expression-- it's all in my head. As far as the really slow ones, and naming that type, the Allen text has a word I just noticed: "strainfull"... for things in life and concepts that are deep, difficult, and troubling. Because, as quoted on xxii, "it can't be sung widout a full heart and a troubled sperrit." So, "strain"s? I'm going to start with the rowing/shouting songs: 5 8 14 17 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 36 46 47 52 INPUTTERS PLEASE NOTE I'm mindful of how these will actually be USED once they are made acccessible online. They need to approximate how a singer would actually SING them, as whole songs. Therefore-- For any new inputs, PLEASE copy/paste as needed to include the repeats indicated, and if it has a chorus, two runs of the chorus (once and then a repeat) even if the repeat of the chorus is not indicated in the dots. (This is correct, per commentary.) Please continue to put whole-tune variations in separate (b) tune files. (These are really version-- variants-- not variations.) Please handle phrase-length variations by incorporating them in the tune-- a verse or two of the regular tune, then a verse with the variation, etc. There are some hints in the commentary that they tried this approach too, where you may find a song that has lots of lines but the text repeats within it? That's what they were doing-- giving a representative version of how and where a variation might be used, but making clear in the commentary that their placement of it is arbitrary and that the singer would vary when and where they were so moved. As I work though the submitted songs, I'll make these modifications if needed if they are simple copy/pastes; otherwise I'll bounce them back to the original inputter for a little restructuring. I don't think of any of the already-submitted songfiles as wrong, or as wasted effort; most of these structural changes are simple copy/paste edits. OK? ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Jan 04 - 01:20 PM .... also, please use a double-bar-line to separate verses, repeats, etc. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 05 Jan 04 - 01:25 PM 124 125 125b 126 127 128 ... received from Mmario. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 09:42 AM List update: I now have: 55 I can't stand the fire 123 Lean on the Lord's side ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 11:26 AM Regarding voicing-- a. What would have been the traditional instruments in Africa at the slaves' point of origin? b. What instruments would they have had at their disposal on the plantation? Banjo, harmonica, a few fiddles? Kalimba? MIDI banjo in the voice range given is awful. Xylo, vibes, marimba? Choir ooh/aah is awful.... ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 07 Jan 04 - 12:19 PM I suspect most would have been unaccompianied. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 02:03 PM Yes I KNOW that, but what instrument would we use now for the MIDI, if it could be one they HAD then. If we want to aim for anything close to inoffensively, possibly appropriate? I gotta tell y'all, I'm pretty freaked out. I have a half dozen or so I have worked on now, and to approximate how these would have been done back then, I think I am going to have to take some liberties with the admittedly-limited understanding Allen had. I'd rather not do it ALL my way, so if I could at least make a "good" decision on the voicing it would help! :~) Imagine, you;re opening the Allen site, and out comes blasting a distortion guitar! It sounds-- well, frankly, pretty cool! But---- ????!?!?!?!?!!!! See my predicament? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 07 Jan 04 - 02:07 PM well - I can see the point - but for learning how a melody SOUNDS - I've found the chorused piano to be the best. Now if we could actually do up wav files of instruments.... |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 03:25 PM As I work through these, I am noticing that the original collectors and/or the typographers did not observe modern notation convention as to indicating different endings. This means that a song may start on a pickup note (fragment of a measure) and end in a full measure, so that if one played or sang it exactly as typeset, one would throw the rhythm off completely as each verse began. This is equally frequent in their handling of internal repeats and in how the pieces moves from verse to chorus. Add to this the fact that these songs came to the authors from a variety of collectors, each with their own haboits in notation-- not unlike our own happy threesome trying to further distill it now! An example of how this would be handled now is the Fiddler's Fakebook, where there is no chunk of time left unclear and it all adds up in as few staff lines as possible, with first and second endings clearly marked among the repeat signs, etc. In order to let these play as actual WORK songs, I've adjusted the durations at endings so that it all fits. And you can hear, in the Lomax LOC collection of sound files, that the basic beat of a song was never the thing altered. There might be changes in TEMPO, but the beat was everything. So I am confident, because I also sing these, that the alterations are correct, being corrective more than interpretive liberties. In the commentary text, the authors invite improvements that flow from better understanding. I can't say I was THERE at the time these wre collected, but I do have one advantage the authors didn't have-- hundreds and hundreds of hours listening, as a learner who transmits them like the spirituals were transmitted-- in group singing; listening to the interpretations of people only a generation later than that of this collection, and the black gospel and blues that flowed forward. So again, I am confident that the alterations are correct and would be necessary to anyone trying to sing these as authentically created. I would bet that similar "changes" have been made for the most recent Dover edition, which I understand includes "clarifications" on timing and pitches. (We are doing our own, however, so that we do not infringe on Dover's copyright. Ours are unique arrangements.) I don't think I really understood till now that what we are doing amounts to a new edition. Plus, the lyrics-- the collectors got these from solo singers, but the songs would usually have been sung in group, and usually with the call/response pattern we know. Knowing this presents further opportunities to clarify what the authors indicate is a fuzzy sense of matching lyrics to tunes, as to how to structure them! I guess since it's most likely I'll be doing these for folks first, I'll have to tackle that issue as I arrive at it, and if I do them all, it will amount to a new edition of sorts. (Yikes!) A notation program issue, I think-- I'm working now mostly on pieces Mary and Mark did. A number of measures show up in NWC with quarter notes or rests where the page scan indicates an 8th. I'm restoring the 8ths except as noted, down below the bar, in my post. 31 - Back to Mary for some changes on handling the variations. 32 - Will also go back to Mary for changes on handling the variations. Several others are on hold till Mary and Mark and I agree on how to correct what started as ABCs so Mark can have his correct and still in ABC. ~Susan ================================================================== Updating the list of songs now in the proofing/revision process, first posted 05 Jan 04 - 11:58 AM: 005 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, internal repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working & rowing rhythm. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 008 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, internal repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working & rowing rhythm. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 014 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, internal repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working/rowing rhythm. I believe the words as matched to the tune in Allen are one of many ways of matching/structuring the tune with the verse/refrain/chorus, as Allen indicates is frequently the case, in the commentary. I've set it up so that the verse goes through one melody pattern, then another, then a chorus that repeats. The songs plays through twice in this pattern. I'm not done with this one yet-- 14b should also be included within 14 as one more verse variation, and I'll need to move the chorus so it plays between the verse variations. Saved as NWC only pending further work. 28 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working & rowing rhythm. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 29 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working & rowing rhythm. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 30 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Note durations altered as needed for fitting repeats within regularity of working & rowing rhythm. Saved as NWC and MIDI. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 05:40 PM A few more "completed" this afternoon. Moved along in the pipeline anyhow. :~) And hey, remember-- there's three of you but only one of me! :~) ~S~ ============================================================ 033 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, no internal repeats (none indicated in page scan), entire song plays twice. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 046 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, three sections with internal repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Saved as NWC and MIDI. 047 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, three sections with internal repeats as indicated in page scan, entire song plays twice. Saved as NWC and MIDI. I believe that the second of the three sections is actually just a repeat of the first section, with the third as a chorus, and this would make lyric matching simpler as well. 052 - tempo q72, voiced as vibraphone, no internal repeats (none indicated in page scan), changed final ending note to a half note. Entire song plays twice. Saved as NWC and MIDI. ============================================================= Except for those being re-worked by Mark and Mary, listed above, and my own work on those, I believe this completes the revision of the rowing songs. When Mary is back, and I have Mary and Mark's resubmissions, I'll send the lot around to the group to hear as MIDIs and if we agree they are "done" I'll ask Pene to post them in the Mudcat MIDIs for now. (I like them well enough to post them as they are now, but I want the group's feedback.) Or we may open an "Allen Slave Songs" thread for posting miditext, links to Mudcat MIDIs, and reworked lyrics. The next group will be the slow ones we're going to call "strains." I'll be voicing them in another instrument and we can post them as a group as well. I have no idea how many there may be that are best sung that way-- have to listen through all the MIDIs submitted and pick some. The "strains" will be those even slower than a "shout." The commentary indicates that many, many of the 136 songs can be used either for shouts or for work/worship, so I would expect that the bulk of the remainder, after the strains, will be shouts or faster. My proofing skills are speeding up from doing these slower rowing songs, so this is a good order to take them in! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 07 Jan 04 - 09:11 PM I sent #31 and #32 back to Susan. Both had what appeared to be harmony notes, but as she noted, they were indications of different variations. I made two separate midis for each song. Neither had repeats, so I'll have to see how to do that when I get another bounce back. Also the naming convention...I'll have to PM Susan until I get it right. These were real easy changes to make...it's just a little difficult to know how to handle the various questions on consistency until I do a few. One reason it's so easy is that I'm using the staff view in Cakewalk. I can't imagine trying to keep the ABC straight. (But then again, ABC is hard for me to read and hear.) I'll be able to proof them easily just by hearing them and following along in the staff view. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 07 Jan 04 - 09:17 PM Hi, Mary. I'll work #31 and its variation together in "repeats" so you can see what I am doing, and I can do 32 the same way unless you want to. I should have your two and Mark's resubmissions tomorrow and might get them done; that would complete the rowing songs before I strike out on a new batch Monday. (I'm pretty much non compos mentis for Fridays and weekends, with church involvements.) Glad you're "back!" ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 08 Jan 04 - 10:03 AM OK, I'll bring this one out into the open. Another query to the group-- hey, how about all those "titty"s in the song texts?? According to the commentary, "Titty" equates to "honored older female relative,"-- Auntie, Sister, Mother, etc. Titty and Brudder, as titles or generic names of sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, etc. I do not think it denotes "wet-nurse".... rather a pronunciation thing. I could be wrong but I don't think a sister would be a wet-nurse, so.... Just so you know-- yes, input it just like the scnas have it, but I ain't gonna sing it that way! Hardi and I are discussiing options! I think it depends on the verse text, what word would give the best sound/context: Little Pretty Sister Sissy Sitty Any more ideas? :~) ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 08 Jan 04 - 10:07 AM Aunty? thus keeping the meaning,the scansion, and at least the last half of the rhyming sound. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:59 PM Just don't go and change Sister Mary! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:44 PM She's changeless! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 10 Jan 04 - 07:04 PM RE: Tempo & Mood Considerations Wow, it's amazing how different these sound at different speeds. I'm listening through all the non-rowing songs submitted, to estimate possible best tempo and take a quick look for any huge errors requiring I bounce them back to the inputters. I'm finally starting to understand (as a musician) a lot of the written commentary that has accompanied printed collections of spirituals--- "... songs .... expressing the deepest feelings...." A lot of that comes from the tempo choices.... and so many of these can sound so many different ways, just by changing the tempo! The same song that a weary mother uses to rock a baby to sleep late at night can rouse the field hands before first light, with simple tempo changes! As I listen, I'm mindful of interpretations by people such as the Lomax sources (LOC) and the Georgia Sea Islanders. In these, some songs are solos and some are leader/group; some are all-group. I think tempo would have a lot to do with mood and setting, but also whether solo or group. A number of them are so sprightly or so obviously calling-out/announcing, it's easy to see that they may have been used to gather people up for a meeting. Others are so mournful they make me picture someome weary and soulsick, very, very alone-- singing just to try to take the edge off the hurt. Tempo also depends on whether the piece mostly consists of quarter and eighth notes, or eighths and sixteenths. Some pieces have so many turns and trills and other ornaments indicated, there are certain speeds that would be unsafe to try! I'm working out some ideas about how to post the MIDIs, with Mmario, since he has had so much experience via the Tune Hunt and since he's worked with Joe & Pene and Dick & Susan for quite some time now. What I think our posted MIDIs can aim for is tempo varieties, such that a representative picture of the possibilities emerges... to set tempo interpretively but making clear that people using these should adapt them as they see fit.... to provide a survey of moods but not, in any way, dictate interpretation, or suggest what is "right," or pretend to be "accurate." The genre itself defies these narrow limits, but now, so many years after their creation it can be easy (especially for notation-oriented folks) to see a piece and assume that how they encounter it is THE arrangement. So when we post these it will be important to clarify this point and encourage experimentation. Here's how I am hearing many of the songs: q32-44 Slow, mournful strain; prayer; exhortation. Real tearjerker; maybe sung when alone and weary, despairing. q50 Serious; prayer; maybe a very slow shout; maybe a lullabye. q56-60 Stately, dignified hymn; slow shout; some rowing tunes. q68 Hymn in a "real" church setting. q70-80 All-purpose; moderately fast shout; most rowing tunes. q90-110 Call to meeting or worship, sung at the meeting entry to gather folks or sung by those coming to the gathering to pick up stragglers and indicate direction. q130 Rousing hymn; celebratory. q144 Playtime; keeping the children occupied or at work. Of course tempo also would vary during the singing of a song. I know this because when I exercise in deep water, I have to start slow and easy and then come up to speed as I warm up and get loose. These work songs have the same effect. At worship, or when passing this song to others for the first time, same thing; I know this from my own songleading-- start slow to teach the tune, singing all the parts; go faster and let the parts fall into a call/response pattern as people catch it and start to move with it. Fiddle tune jams, the same-- play to the slowest common denominator to introduce the tune; and gain speed as people get some facility with the A and B parts and the switches between them; aim for the "groove" where most of the players are playing beyond their usual skill level and breaking a happy sweat in full communion with one another. Stay in the groove as long as it's working. These features don't just pertain to tempo. Phrasing, blue notes, all of the interpretative aspects vary as to use and situation. When you bring one of these songs to life, it can be done so many ways, it's more than one life! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 10 Jan 04 - 11:51 PM Very interesting, Susan. Do you have the ability to change the tempos of the MIDIs we're sending? If not, feel free to let me know how you'd like each one set. I notice at the bottom of page xliv, Allen says: As regards the tempo, most of the tunes are in 2-4 time, and in most of these [quarter note] = 100--(say)100-120. The spirit of the music will determine the tempo within these limits. The slower tunes are 1, 3, 9, 17, 21, etc. No. 2 is about [quarter note] = 160-180, and perhaps had better have been written in 3-8. So No. 13 would be better in 2-4; as it is, the [quarter note] = 160-170. No. 24 should be read as if divided in 2-4, with [quarter note] = 100. The tempo of the rowing tunes has been already indicated.Is your interpretation of tempos informed by Allen's advice here or are you relying on your experience with other music of this genre? Also, I interpret the last note as meaning Allen, et al., may not have published the scores in the same key in which they were heard. Do you make that interpretation as well? - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 11 Jan 04 - 12:35 AM Yes, Mark, I think Allen means they were moved to the keys shown, and IMO they are way too high! There is something else about the Allen group's collection process that bothers me. I would bet, although they are tantalizingly incomplete in their remarks about this, that the people transcribing these would importune Old Joe or Titty Marta to sing to them so they could write down songs. As a solo. OK, but that ain't how they'd have really DONE them! When I teach a new one, I have to sing ALL the parts-- the call AND the response, the verse and the chorus, any ornamentation-- until the group has gotten the pattern and the tune and the feel of it. (Like all of what you see on a page in the Allen material.) But-- once the group gets it, my part becomes much more like the coxswain in a boat, or like the leader in an oldfashioned black gospel recording, or like the lead shouter probably led the shouts in slave times. The leader's part is clear, in every recorded spiritual I have ever heard, and distinctly separate from the rest of the piece, even if the leader sometimes sings parts of the response, too. Yet in the Allen collection, the notation gives almost no hint that some phrases are called out by the leader and the rest are responses.... and unless you know that this is a characteristic of the genre-- in MANY songs the most prominent characteristic-- you'd never know it from picking up an Allen piece, and IMO the commentary is not clear enough about this except for a few references to "basing." It's tempting to think the melodies are written down wrong, where the intervals take an odd jump, not realizing there's a group of people about to chime in on the song, for whom that is THE phrase, THE interval to sing, exactly! OK, rant off.... Yes I can change tempo... right now I am just sifting through the ones submitted, and unless they need other wrok I'm just going to adjust the tempo as I do the repeats. But I would encourage you to have some fun on the next ones you work on-- try out some of the tempi I outlined and see how you think they should go. And yes, I have incorporated Allen's remarks into the increasing understanding I have of this genre; as I indicated in an earlier post, there have been several periods in the last 10 years when I was immersed in hearing the spirituals as performed by a number of people in a number of different time periods. (Love the Bahamian boat guys!) From all the stylistic creativity their recordings have captured, I've somehow gotten a pretty good ear for what they all have in common, such as the blue notes (where and when and why they occur), the pace and mood, the richness of the vocal quality.... When I play the MIDIs you three have created, there are several speeds at which, suddenly, I might as well be hearing a human voice sing them-- they come THAT alive. I can hardly do more than 8 or 9 quick listens, to 4 or 5 songs, before I feel like I have to sing along with these non-present people! It's kinda eerie, and very cool. I can't wait to do these in church with our highly-responsive Saturday Night crowd. I'll be doing them in the new way I discovered several months ago, and I guess maybe I'll say more about that later in the week. I would say, for now, pick a tempo you think feels right when you listen to the next ones you have input. Send it to me that way; who knows, maybe it'll stick! :~) BTW I have been looking at the Hampton collection. Drat! It's all harmonies! :~) ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 11 Jan 04 - 12:38 AM PS-- but I am leaving them in the key Allen chose, or this would all be useless. If and when I learn any given piece to present, I change it for my own use only, as I would any material we work up for church. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:06 PM Don't pay the ransom, I've escaped. Susan, I haven't abandoned you, I've just been really busy. I'm directing a local production of Paul Osborn's Morning's At Seven and this is the first week of rehearsals. So I'm spending a lot of time worrying about sets, blocking, character analysis and the like. Should be better next week. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:12 PM Thanks Mark. That's OK, I been slacking, myself. Too many tunes stuffed in my head, taking a few days off. Back to check out the ones you and Mary re-did, before anything else. While we slack off, BTW, Mmario and I are discussing ways to include them in Mudcat MIDIs. These are a bit unusual in that the lyrics will stay at the Allen site, not in threads here. We're talking how to make it simplest to see Allen and hear MIDI, basically, and how much detail we need to post about each one.... most likely in a thread that will index the lot of them. You know, tempo and other details, etc. Once we get that figgered out (and I finish the few that are pending from the rowing songs), as far as I know, we'll hang up the first batch. We can use it as a little test, see if we like how we set it up, refine it if necessary. So, time is NOT being wasted! Have fun! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: GUEST,MMario Date: 15 Jan 04 - 12:47 PM me bad! I've been off on another forum (forgive me!) "translating" knitting patterns from the late 1800's. But I just sent a few more off to WYSIWYG. #'s 119 - 122 |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 21 Jan 04 - 10:08 AM I'm on hold here-- had some health glitches plus the area I am working in needs some attention to make more room for this project. (Getting the long-awaited new glasses didn't hurt, either.) :~) I have help coming on both fronts and hope to be back on track next week to finish checking the corrected items. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: MMario Date: 22 Jun 04 - 11:40 AM refreshing |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 22 Jun 04 - 11:51 AM Yeah, what kinda time do people have to get back to this? I think I'm the bottleneck. I have to fess up-- the ones I've done have lost their texts, accidentally, and I don't think we need text anyhow-- the text and dots to read are already online at the Allen site. My goal was simple-- just to be able to click to HEAR them while LOOKING at them. THEN we layered on how Mudcat MIDIs usually are done-- can we all agree to take my word for it that they don't have to be just like most Mudcat MIDIs? It would keep the project manageable, for me. I got kinda busy. Finally have the health to do more than one thing, took on a lot of new, exciting thngs.... ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: Mark Clark Date: 23 Jun 04 - 10:03 AM Yeah, I need to get my effort cranked back up as well. I was directing a play through the first quarter of the year and just got busy. I'm swamped again right now but should break free in a couple of weeks. I'll probably continue to supply the files in the same formats I've been using since I use ABC+ to create the MIDI files. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: NightWing Date: 23 Jun 04 - 10:24 PM I'll jump in here, too. Looks like no one is taking Part III (songs 103-111). I'll grab them. You want them in MIDI, right? Sent to whom? And whoever is using ABC for this, how were you doing a fermata? BB, NightWing P.S. I use the least expensive of them all: ABC2Win :) |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 23 Jun 04 - 11:40 PM PM sent. Anyone else already taking the chunk mentioned? We could think about doing Hampton next..... ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 23 Jun 04 - 11:51 PM PS to NightWing-- I know it's cumbersome, but it's really a good idea to review this whole thread. You will probably run into a lot of the same questions and challenges the others did, which I've answered as best I could. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: NightWing Date: 24 Jun 04 - 10:02 PM I always read the whole thread. Didn't see an answer to my question. I just went ahead and figured a way to do it. Serious question now: The dots on #107, Brother, Guide Me Home, on page 86 is written with repeats. The words don't reflect a repeat and, IMO (I don't have humble ones :), it wouldn't work well with repeats. Opinions? BB, NightWing P.S. So far, this is my favorite tune of the ones I've seen. |
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Subject: RE: MIDI Volunteer Sought From: wysiwyg Date: 24 Jun 04 - 11:05 PM Go ahead and submit it without the repeats. I may add them in, but I take those decisions one tune at a time. Most of the ones already submitted came without repeats, but the Allen introductory text sheds some light on stuff like that. I'm looking forward to hearing it! Thanks, ~Susan |
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