Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?

Subject: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Earl Gray
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 04:39 PM

I was wondering if anyone of you out there knows a good way of finding the notes to all those jigs and reels you'd so very much like to play with your band, but they're just too damn hard to figure out just by listening to them... So is there something like this lyrics database for notes? Is there some site in this whole wide internet from where you can get those darn notes? Or is there another good way to get them? Or does anyone know a mailorder service in Germany with reasonable prices? Help me, please! Thanks in advance, any input would be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 04:57 PM

Web wise probably the best starting point is Chris Walshaws ABC site as it provides links to several other sites. It is at http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/

These 2 can be found from there but they are the 2 I have found to be most useful.

John Chambers search engine: http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/FindTune.html

Richard Robinsons Tune Book: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/listings.html

Both of these sites have a search facility and offer the tunes in gif and ABC formats. The JC one also offers MIDI and PostScript formats.

Jon

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 05:55 PM

Another searchable database that will provide abc for tunes as well as references is the Fiddler's Companion.

alice

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Alice
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 05:59 PM

and the Ceolas tunebook in acrobat format, more links to gif images of tunes on the web,
click here, including the ones Jon already provided. -alice

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: _gargoyle
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 09:08 PM

The above suggestions connect to some wonderful sites.

On the opening page of this site http://www.mudcat.org on the lower left side is a "LINKS" connnection

Follow it, and you are in for a holiday season of fabulous browsing, links, leading to links, leading to links....and LOTS of musical notation.

For starters, What Are Your Instruments?

Are there any specific "styles" or "countries of origin" you are seeking?

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From:
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 09:11 PM

C,D,E,F,G,A,B there, you've got 'em all.

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Dan Evergreen
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 04:17 PM

Hey, very funny, anonomous, but not original. It is taken from the old one: "And now for the latest baseball scores. 5 to 1, 4 to 3, 9 to 2, and 1 to 0."

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From:
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 07:20 PM

Just a note about the ABC site. There are (free) programs to convert ABC files to standard notation and to MIDI files, so ABC is not limited to its own notation.

In order to get reasonable quality in printing/viewing sheet music you need some software. You should install "ghostscript" for the Postscript files and/or "Acrobat reader" for the "pdf" files. Both of these programs are free and have been compiled for Mac and Windows.

Another site you can look at is:

http://members.xoom.com/chrissawer/mutopia/ which is "Project Mutopia". It is hoped that this will be to music what "Project Gutenberg" is to literature. The last time I looked there was mostly classical music on the site; but it is open to all contributors, and there might be a wider range now.

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 07:29 PM

Hi Murray, that link does not appear to active any longer, Cheers, John

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Barry T
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 07:35 PM

Don't overlook midi files as a great source of tunes. There certainly aren't as many as ABC on the web, but with Noteworthy (or any commercial sequencing software) you can print the notation.

For example, here is a great site that someone in a newsgroup shared with us recently. It's Mal dnd Jo's Home Page. They offer a selection of Irish tunes already in sets. Really great stuff! 'Very kind of them to share these tunes with us. There's enough material here to keep the party rockin' for hours!

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 07:40 PM

Anyway, the Nowhere Man missed out all the notes that keyboard players call the black ones. And then there are all the ones tyat fit in between the notes which we take note of. The ones that we've trained our ears out of recognising, by playing instruments with frets and buttons.

And noone has mentioned The Book. - Francis O'Neill's "Music of Ireland - Eighteen Hundred and Fifty Melodies: Airs, Jigs, Rels, Honpipes, Long Dances, Marches &c., Many of which are now published for the First Time, collected from all Available Sources."

There's a bastardised version of it edited by Miles Krassen in New York in 1976, Oak PPublications. But thefe's a better version published by someone else in the Hobgoblin Catalogue - clicky thing

I only wish I could read the music myself though.

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 08:00 PM

Earl, I hope you got the impression here that you have to learn something about ABC notation. You'll find there's a wealth of fiddle music out there for you, but you have to know how to use and ABC player. Check all the ABC sites listed on our Links Page (click). The first link given in this thread was the ABC Home Page It will lead you to everything you need to know about ABC. As for placers, there are many good ones available for free or at a low price. I use ABCMUS (click) which has a $10 registration fee - but the unregistered version works pretty well. Once you play a few ABC tunes, you may want to learn how to transcribe tunes into ABC notation - it isn't hard.
You may also want to visit Yet Another Digital Tradition to access the Digital Tradition tunes in various formats. Also, click here for another thread on computer music notation.
Our own John in Brisbane made up a wonderful guide for ABC, but I can't find it. Can anybody post a link?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 10:32 PM

Joe, it seems like 5 years ago that I wrote this in http://www.mudcat.org/thread.CFM?threadID=11114. I may have posted it again - I'm not sure.

I had also started writing a much more comprehensive guide to the whole shooting match of Midis and ABC's (and stuff...) but it got a bit out of control. I didn't finish it!

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 10:53 PM

You might give THE TUNE WEB a try at:

http://members.xoom.com/darsie/music/tuneweb/

There are lots of good tunes as well as some audio files.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Escamillo
Date: 20 Dec 99 - 11:17 PM

I've found many MIDI songs (no lyrics, in general) in www.musicrobot.com, it is an excellent search engine.
Yours, Andrés Magré

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From:
Date: 23 Dec 99 - 12:15 AM

Sorry John (and others). The link I gave for the Mutopia project seems to be out of date. Here is the current one:

http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/Mutopia/

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Earl Gray
Date: 23 Dec 99 - 08:25 AM

Hey Gargoyle (and all the others, too),

My instruments are bass guitar and acoustic guitar (I do play electric guitar, too, but I'm not alowed to do so in my folk band - but that's OK) and I've just started playing banjo, which is not too hard when you can play guitar. And a special "Thank you" to Jon Freeman: I've found the JC most valuable. Thanks to all of you!

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 23 Dec 99 - 06:25 PM

Earl, seeing that your a guitarist - ever wanted to figure out what the chords are in a Midi File? You could print out the score using NoteWorthy or similar but if you're like me that's a fairly painstaking porocess.

Download WinJammer Pro shareware from www.soundtrek.com and it will do it for you. Select File/Import Midi. Then select Tools/Chord Recognition and then follow the menu. PLease note that this program simply reads the actual chords that the person who sequenced the Midi file placed there in the first place. It doesn't guess or use algorithms to calculate what the chords might be. If the chords sound good, then that's what you'll get - if they're excrement then it will faithfully display them as well.

Because a lot of Midis are sequenced by keyboard players you may find that some of their chords have an extra note thrown in for colour (it's pretty easy for them to add an extra finger to chords here and there, intended or otherwise). You'll need to use your judgement whether the extra effort is worth it when playing guitar/Banjo for folk tunes. On the other hand the chords used in jazz tunes are often the bee's knees and well worth replicating.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Help: Where do I get the notes to folk tunes?
From: Mick Lowe
Date: 23 Dec 99 - 07:15 PM

Boy am I glad I "stumbled" this thread, I now have lots to look at over the Christmas hols.. just wish I had the time to do it..
I've been meaning for ages to check out this ABC thingy and the associated software available for tweaking it
But that's not the reason for adding my two penny worth..
Earl if you just want the music sending to you in easy to read jpeg format then I suggest you check out Prof's Irish Pages
Cheers
Mick