Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?

Subject: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 May 02 - 08:20 AM

Some time ago I downloaded a collection of DT songs from the Web - about 240 of them in a single ABC file. They were in ABC format and most used the ABC convention of aligned lyrics, plus they had the extra verses to any given song included. From memory there was no attribution given to the DT, but there parentage was unquestionably DT. They are a particularly good example of how lyrics are handled in the latest Draft ABC Notation Standard.

I still have the download file, but would dearly love to revisit the site. Any clues please?

I am familiar with 'The Alternative DT' site, but this is not what I'm chasing. That site contains only lyrics to the first verse and chorus, plus it omits the tune title in the header.

Many thanks,
John

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: MMario
Date: 14 May 02 - 01:29 PM

222 songs from the Digital tradition

Is this it?

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 14 May 02 - 02:22 PM

When I can spare a day, I'll complete my check of my conversion of the new DT to midi and, as I use abc as an intermediate form, I'll have the whole DT available in abc.

(On the alternative site, the abc conversion has problems - IIRC triplets were not handled well and you find strange note lengths in some files).

Mick

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 15 May 02 - 09:19 PM

Thanks MMario, I'd spent ages trying to find this.

Mick, I have a project in planning to convert the DT to PDF's, or some other high quality graphics. I'm guessing but if there are 5,000 songs in the DT that have both lyrics and tune, that would require a storage overhead of only 100 Megs. Not so huge these days!

I've re-checked the ABC files that MMario found and now realise that they don't contain aligned lyrics. On the other hand the draft DT on CD has aligned lyrics but completely omits lyrics beyond the first verse and chorus. I'd be keen to hear from you re your ABC database, because that's by far the hardest part from my perspective. The conversion to PDF is then comparitively straight forward.

If anyone else is interested in this topic please let me know. In simple terms I'm using the C compiled version of abcm2ps and GhostView in Windows. I've started writing a Mudcat primer so that more PC users could do their own thing.

Regards, John
[e-mail]

PS I'll be interstate until Tuesday and may not get to my email in the interim.

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 16 May 02 - 05:00 AM

That 222 songs site is referring to the DT on the xerox site that predated the move to mudcat - way long time ago.

John - the newest version, soon to be released when all the necessary volunteers finish their pieces, has a few less than 5000 of its 9000 songs with tunes. Check with Dick about the Windows format - it includes sheet music.

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 16 May 02 - 05:13 AM

John - I've actually converted all the files both to abc and midi (just under 4000 in the version I've got). The conversion is relatively quick 1-1.5 hours Songwright->abc->midi (my abc conversion is done via Access and is the slow part, I could speed it up by converting to C++ but don't really see the need as it's not a conversion I plan to do regularly; I was planning to hold everything in an Access database which is why it was done like that).Postscript versions are trivially produced from the abc (via abcm2ps or similar).

I can produce version with synchronized words (%w in abc) for generating Karaoke style midi, but if it helps I could probably include the complete texts as %W records with not too much work (the full texts are not in the SW files, so they'd have to be picked up externally)

My only delay at the moment is checking the warnings produced both by my conversion to abc and by the abc-midi conversion. They are relatively few and almost all are ignorable but I prefer to check them all (since this is a one-off batch conversion) and I'm a bit busy elsewhere at the moment. I'll try and set some time aside this week to finish the checking.

If any of this is of interest let me know and we can discuss it off the forum (e-mail sent separately)

Mick (MCPearce0ATaolDOTcom)

Subject: RE: Help: DT Songs in ABC Format on the Web?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 16 May 02 - 05:29 AM

Mick and Susan,

I have to fly (literally) and will watch my email. The existence of the abc database is exciting because abcm2ps has some great possibilities for both on and off line use.

The perfectionist in me would like to see a printable version of the dors with aligned words, plus addirional verses in text. ANY DT OR MUDCAT SHOULD BE ABLE TO PRINT THEIR OWN SONG COLLECTION WITH EASILY READABLE MUSIC AND LYRICS.

I'll be back from my Mum's 90'th birthday party on Monday.

Many thanks for your help.

John

PS I posted a thread calling for nominations for an on-line database of favourite songs in PDF format.