Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use

Subject: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Deni
Date: 01 May 01 - 10:16 AM

I've just discovered this link from another thread, but when I tried it, couldn't work it out. It appears you can identify tunes by typing a fragment in the bar at the top. but what form does the fragment take. Appreciate help, because this seems like a brilliant resource.

Subject: RE: Help: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 May 01 - 10:32 AM

Just part of the title; ideally a part that doesn't have alternate spellings.  Experiment a bit!

Subject: RE: Help: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Sorcha
Date: 01 May 01 - 10:35 AM

It accepts just about anything, Deni. You need to start on the home page, tho, which is this one A lot of times folks link just to the gif page of the tune requested.

For instance, if you want Irish Washerwoman, you could type in that, or Irish or Washerwoman. The more specific your request is, the more specific your results will be.

Subject: Tunefinder and tune resources
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 May 01 - 01:56 PM

I think the ABC Tune Finder is the best tune resource of all, but you'll find a number of other tune resources on the ABC Home Page. If you're looking for the Digital Tradition tunes in various formats that we don't provide, try Yet Another Digital Tradition.

What Deni's talking about is the Experimental Page of the ABC Tunefinder. This page is supposed to allow you to enter part of the tune, and then it will attempt to find tunes that match that fragment.

OK, so I understand Deni's question, but I have no idea how to explain the answer (JC has some blue clickies that will give a pretty good start). I think that this could be a valuable feature for those people who know ABC well enough to compose tunes in ABC in their head. I can't - I have to think hard and look at the Mudcat ABC Tune Guide whenever I enter a tune in ABC.
Good luck, Deni.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 May 01 - 02:49 PM

Ah, I see what you mean, Joe.  I think that some of the links I've given to JC's Tunefinder in the past have been to the experimental page, but I didn't recall the abc input option; maybe it wasn't there to begin with.  More recently, I've been linking to the standard search page to avoid confusion.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Deni
Date: 02 May 01 - 01:58 AM

Thanks everyone, I'm off to follow up. The biggest problem I have is when I have written a tune and it reminds me of another. I then have to check them one against the other to make sure i'm not cribbing. Of course there are thousands more tunes to worry about!

Subject: RE: Help: JC's Tunefinder How to use
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 02 May 01 - 05:02 AM

Try typing 'reel' in, like this fool did. Got about 4,000 titles.

Fantastic resource. Some time back I sent JC a thank-you note, as the site has helped me a bundle with reading the tadpoles, as my by-ear method wasn't yielding the right notes (as Eric Morecombe, bless him, said) in the right order.

Skipjack

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:27 PM

Somebody posted a link to this:

http://www.folktunefinder.com/

Looks like a very handy gadget.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:08 PM

That's great, Joe. Just typed in the first two bars of a tune I wrote, and no, I haven't copied anything!

JC's tunefinder is also an invaluable resource, although some of the versions it comes up with are....bizarre.

Splendid

Paws

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: GUEST,newbie fiddler
Date: 08 Oct 11 - 11:16 PM

OK, I am a newbie to the abc trad/folk archiving scene. Forgive me if this sounds stupid to old hands, but... What baffles me about JC's tune finder is the sheer number of results it returns.

How do I interpret, or rank, or even wade through, all those versions? is there any way to tell which are "more authentic" or to identify regional styles?

It is a bit overwhelming to be faced with the stack of html tables (is there some reason for their grouping into tables of differing widths?) of over 100 versions of the target tune. I don't know how to interpret much of the terse header format.

I wish (I know this is asking a lot of the s'ware) that there was some indication of how similar each tune is to some canonical "average" of all the notation, so that I could identify strange versions vs very minor variants. As it is, I tend to look at half a dozen or so, realise that none of them is the version that my teacher showed me... and give up because it would take all night to review all 148 versions of, say, "Blarney Pilgrim".

Is there a more intelligent way to approach this daunting data dump?

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: IvanB
Date: 09 Oct 11 - 12:00 AM

JC's Tune Finder is a search engine that searches all the abc tune file database sites on the internet that he knows about. As such it's a lot like Google in the sheer amount of data it references, much of it probably duplicates.

The reason for different table widths is that data is output in groups of 20 and the column widths are dynamic, i.e., they change to accommodate the amount of data in them. The two columns at the far right are the culprits that usually make a table wider, since they can vary quite a bit in size. Thus a table of 20 items will be sized to accommodate the width of the widest element in any given column.

I suppose one way of winnowing the list would be to look at the far left column (if you chose the default "Single" in the search options; if you chose "Multiple" it'll be the second column on the left). You'll note very few of the matching tunes have an entry in that column. This entry refers to the source of the data, usually one of the well known tune books, such as, in the case of The Blarney Pilgrim, O'Neill's or The Fiddlers Companion.

These might or might not be the versions your teacher uses. I find my teacher tends to teach tunes as he is currently performing them, which may vary quite a bit from ANY source material. In some cases, he hasn't looked at the sheet music for them in years. Since I record my lessons I usually find it easiest to just transcribe his playing of the tune into NoteWorthy Composer.

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Oct 11 - 06:46 AM

Use the tune search at http://abcnotation.com/search instead. Much simpler interface.

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: GUEST,Richard Robinson
Date: 09 Oct 11 - 08:03 AM

"although some of the versions it comes up with are....bizarre."

It's not responsible for that, though, it just tries to find any ABC tunes that anybody types up and puts on the 'net, and shows whatever it finds. Vast chunks of them are copies of each other, too. The fields it shows can be a clue to that.


Shameless self-promotion time :- there is also a search at http://richardrobinson.tunebook.org.uk/list/select

It doesn't do the web-crawler thing, it only finds what it has in its own database; on the other hand, that's quite a lot, and there's an upside to it as well, like less pointless duplication (but it still has many copies of Soldier's Joy, which has to be good, yes ? *grin*).


You can search for all sorts of different things - text, sequences of notes, etc. You can search for sequences of generic "up" and "down", or for specific numbers of semitones up or down, or for sequences written in ABC - it translates these into numbers, so it's independent of key or abc details. And it can do "fuzzy". (The interface probably still needs some tidying up and simplifying. *sigh* I'm not good at those).

The database tends to be weakest on the ones there are 50,000 copies of elsewhere (except that 1000 of everything have probably been copied from there in the first place. grouch), but has Other Stuff. As of last week, it includes a complete browsable set of the Village Music Project tunes. I'm rather pleased about that.

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Oct 11 - 05:05 PM

You mean

http://richardrobinson.tunebook.org.uk/list/select

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: GUEST,Richard Robinson
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 06:39 AM

"You mean" ...

Thanks, Jack :-)

It's not the most obvious of names, now I look, is it ?

Subject: RE: Help: JC's ABC Tunefinder How to use
From: GUEST,Richard Robinson
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 12:47 PM

... http://richardrobinson.tunebook.org.uk/search is neater.