Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 22 Oct 02 - 10:39 PM

Not too surprisingly I received no posts about font creation, so I've muddled my way through the process. I've recruited trial participants to try out my new whistle font in a thread named 'Whistle Players Wanted'. Six or eight Mudcatters will try it out.

I've yet to create a font design for the fingering of C# in the key of C, but with this exception I now have fonts for every chromatic note in the two octave range, plus symbols for rest, bar line and tie. All fingering is cross fingered.

I'll probably restrict further discussions on this subject to the other thread.

Regardsm John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 10:14 AM

Good for you John... This is great! Unfortunately, I can't help with fonts. My knowledge in this area is about zilch. But I will be following the other thread with great interest.

Don

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 04:49 AM

I've started a separate thread on the rather obtuse subject of creating new fonts, even more arcane than the subject of this thread. I'm making fair progress on re-creating a special Tin Whistle font that includes all the accidentals and with the cross fingering that Don was chasing. But I need a little bit of help on font creation.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 08:45 AM

Good Day John,

Probably the single best one is:

http://www.stainedglass.org/other_pages/tinwhistle/whistle_main.html

Next, the best thing to do is to exercise the program at the YADT site, pick a key of C whistle, and see what he uses. You have to just search around for some tunes in odd-ball keys, and look at his fingering patterns using a C whistle.

Must run now... all out of time. Be in touch when when we return.

Don

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 04:07 AM

Hi Don,

I wrote a fairly long reply this morning but it has vanished. This one will be brief.

Please direct me to a site that has the cross fingerings you refer to. I'll have a dabble at creating a new font in the Key of C Major, so if you could provide me with some cross references, eg F# is Fig 10, it would be unambiguous for a basic whistle player like me.

Your reply has given me loads of ideas to follow up, but I'll give them some more processing time.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 02:53 PM

John,

I ran a Google search on 'abc2whis' and got three hits, but they all went to the same dead link.

Don

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 02:07 PM

John,

I see that you have been busy while I slept… Thank you.

You wrote: "There is/has been a script called abc2whis available which converts abc notation to whistle tablature. I had a play with it a year or so ago without success. (Maybe it was written in awk/gawk or PERL? I can't quite recall). I am very confident however that it was abc based, so shouldn't be too hard to track down."

I am not familiar with this one. Any additional information would be appreciated. I will search a bit as well.

You wrote: "You'll find a tin whistle font at http://members.shaw.ca/dabooks/music/whistle_font.html which bears a strong resemblance to the one that Erich uses."

I have taken a look at this in the past. As you note, it is diatonic only, which does not serve my current need. I am working with a student who is trying to learn to play a C whistle chromatically in all keys. This is doable and does have some merit. I may have to try this myself.

I have found that that you can set the lyrics font on Noteworthy Composer to the whistle font, and NWC is quite happy to insert the whistle tab as if it were lyrics. You do have to remove all of the slurs (but not ties) from the score. About all notation programs, NWC included, do not assign the next 'syllable' of lyrics to slurred notes, and quite properly so.

You wrote: "I'm moderately certain that the program used to create the combination of standard and whistle notation is jaabc2ps with explanatory notes at file:///C:/TEMP/jaabc2ps.html#tinwhistletab."

I don't think this is the one Erich Rickheit uses in YADT. I am quite familiar with jaabc2ps, and it generates accidentals using half-holing (and I can find no flag to make it do otherwise.) Erich's program generates accidentals using cross-fingered patterns. So, on this basis, I think they are different. The jaabc2ps approach may ultimately prove to be better as half-holing will always work and cross-fingered patterns may vary with the brand of whistle. But I really would like to take a look in detail at the program that Erich uses.

You wrote: "Alf Warnock's wife has written a Win front end for jaabc2ps and available at his site. I should immediately point that jaabc2ps can be used on a variety of platforms including Win, Mac and UNIX. I've had some communication with Alf in the last week or so regarding the GUI interface but haven't had the chance to really road test it yet."

I looked at this a while back, but found that it still has a few bugs. I can't recall the exact details at the moment, but some little part of it did not work quite right. I think that I have the latest version, but I do need to check just to make sure. It does indeed provide a whistle option through a command line type interface to jaabc2ps.

I have used AbcMus with very good success as a front end to jaabc2ps and GSView. AbcMus allows one to evoke external programs, and it passes whatever parameters you wish to them through a command line. It works quite well if you choose some generic path and filename for the tune you are currently working, then change the name to whatever you want when you are finished.

You wrote: "This type of program has been discussed in three parallel threads of recent weeks. I'll provide some cross references later but the subject geadings are (roughly) Creating Mandolin TABs, How to Convert PDF Files, Mudcat ABC Guide."

I would appreciate anything here that you can point me to. I'll search as well. I do thank you for your input thus far. I would still like to get to whatever Erich Rickheit uses, if possible, to see if it may be adaptable for general use. I think it will be the most suitable for what I am trying to do.

I'm going to be out of pocket for a week or so starting in a few days from now, so should you not hear back from me immediately, you will eventually. I may have internet access where I am going. Just have to see.

The best to you,
Don

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 03:35 AM

Yep, jaabc2ps certainly does it. Just download the jaabc2ps file, unzip it to a specific directory (say JAABC2Ps) and save a favourite abc notation file of your choice in the same directory. (Sentimental Journey is one of the downloaded tunes).

Go to DOS

Change to Directory c:\jaabc2ps

Type in the following:

jaabc2ps journey.abc -o -W1C

or to play on a G whistle

jaabc2ps journey.abc -o -W1G   

The output will be written to the same directory as OUT.PS.

This is part of another thread but you will need Ghostscript and GSview to view and print this file. Alternatively go to PS2PDF.com who will convert it for you to .PDF (Adobe Acrobat format) in the blink of an eye. You can then view the converted file with Adobe Acrobat.

There a zillion other options available in aabc2ps to make the output look nicer or to create many files at once but the above instructions are enough to give quality output. If you're not used to using DOS command line instructions don't be too fazed - it's really very easy once you do it a couple of times. Jon F could probably lnock up a C++ front end in a couple of hours, but I'll chase up the Alf Warnock version first. I suspect that that his version (or more correctly Elizabeth Scarlett's) may not provide a whistle option in the interface.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 01:47 AM

I'm moderately certain that the program used to create the combination ofstandard and whistle motation is jaabc2ps with explanatory notes at file:///C:/TEMP/jaabc2ps.html#tinwhistletab.

jaabc2ps is one of a series of clones of an abc notation utility known as abc2ps. primarily designed to create near publishing quality output of sheet music in Postscript format.

This type of program has been discussed in three parallel threads of recent weeks. I'll provide some cross references later but the subject geadings are (roughly) Creating Mandolin TABs, How to Convert PDF Files, Mudcat ABC Guide.

Alf Warnock's wife has written a Win front end for jaabc2ps and available at his site. I should immediately point that jaabc2ps can be used on a variety of platforms including Win, Mac and UNIX. I've had some communication with Alf in the last week or so regarding the GUI interface but haven't had the chance to really road test it yet.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 12:27 AM

Cdon, I have a little bit of extra information for you, but probneed to send a couple of emails to get closer to the complete answer.

There is/has been a script called abc2whis available which converts abc notation to whistle tablature. I had a play with it a year or so ago without success. (Maybe it was written in awk/gawk or PERL? I can't quite recall). I am very confident however that it was abc based, so shouldn't be too hard to track down.

You'll find a tin whistle font at http://members.shaw.ca/dabooks/music/whistle_font.html which bears a strong resemblance to the one that Erich uses. Basically it allows you to enter the notes of the D major scale in any text processor (I used Wordpad) and then by selecting the Penny Whistle Font it magically changes to whistle notation. For a diatonic tune (no accidental notes outside of the major key) the scale is simply defgabcDEFGABCH. There are other upper and lower case letters used for accidentals. The only note not available is D#

In principle you can import a tune in abc notation format, convert to D Major or its modal equivalents, do some parsing and text translation and voila you have the whistle notation. It sounds like an easy-ish task for a PERL writer. It's a bit of a bugger but the font designers chose to allocate lower case letters for the lower octave and upper case for the upper octave. In standard abc notation the reverse is true. I wrote a quick and dirty macro using Word and it works OK, but it's a long way from providing Whistle TABs under the conventional score

But on the basis that the wheel has already been invented I'll chase it up further.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 05:16 PM

Sorcha,
Thanks for the heads-up on TablEdit. I have checked their demo earlier, and it is very different from what is done on Erich's site. TablEdit is heavily oriented toward stringed instruments, and its support of whistle tablature is minimal. It provides tablature only for a whistle in the key of D, and only for a diatonic scale. But, in its favor, it does provide standard notation along with the tablature. Unfortunately, it does not fulfill my overall needs.

Subject: RE: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 04:11 PM

Don't know if it's the one Erich uses, but Tabledit says it will do whistle tab......

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 04:03 PM

This thread is rapidly drifting off the original subject, which was to locate the author of the program that Erich Rickheit uses on his site to generate notation with pennywhistle tablature... Not to argue the merits of tablature vs notation vs learning-by-ear.

For any who may be interested, the program genrates tablature in conjunction with standard notation (read both at the same time), not just tablature only. This program is only one of two that I know of that will allow the key of the whistle to be selected independent of the key signature of the tune, and is the only one that I know of that does this by using cross-fingered patterns as opposed to half-holing. Tablature by itself is of course worthless, as no timing infromation is provided. But... Tablature, in conjunction with standard notation, can be useful to certain students in the early stages of learning to read music, if properly used. Particularly, the type tablature used at the site in question.

The merits of learning tunes by ear vs notation is of course a perpetual argument and has nothing what-so-ever to do with the subject of this post... That subject will be argued till doomsday, I am sure with no resolution.

Now, climbing down from my soap box, does anyone know who authored this program for Erich? :-) (Sorry if I seem grumpy, but experience has shown that the question just won't get answered if the discussion drifts too far off-topic.)

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: GUEST,mike cahill
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 03:08 PM

I agree with jiggers, play by ear, learn to read music, or copy the tune into a program like noteworthy composer which plays it back for you. Tab is so limiting, and is a dead end. if you can learn to read tab well enough to play from it you can learn to read music. (having said this I can't read either, but I wouldn't learn tab)

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: GUEST,Jiggers
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 02:50 PM

I have seen different fingering given for different makes of tin whistles especially for C#, C natural, D so I don't use tin -whistle tab. Also how do you know how long to play the note for without looking at the stave ?

I think it would be easier to learn to read the music.

There's only about 16 notes to learn for the tin-whistle and all the music I play uses crotchets, minims, quavers, semi-quavers, demi-semi quavers - sometimes dotted to give extra length. There are no rests and no Italian directions e.g. louder/softer, allegro,adante etc. So there is much less to learn than you might think !

Jiggers

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 02:27 PM

Dont READ music,just keep playing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 01:10 PM

It most surely would be great to have a copy...

Subject: RE: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 12:51 PM

I can shed no light on this, but would it not be great to have a copy? How many tunes would I love to transcribe! For now I will have to jut be grateful for all the tune avialable in the format, for after two plus years of tooting I still cant read music.
Nick

Subject: BS: Pennywhistle Tab at YADT Site
From: CDon
Date: 13 Oct 02 - 10:42 AM

Erich Rickheit provides an option at his Yet Another Digital Tradition Page to obtain tunes in GIF format that include pennywhistle tablature. He states that this notation feature is provided by an experimental program, I gather by another author. Does anyone know who wrote the pennywhistle tab program that Erich uses and how this person may be contacted?

I would ask Erich, but he has surrounded himself in a cloak of invisibility... But that's OK :-)

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