Fiddlewik - Posted - 10/12/2010:  22:32:43

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Hey, guys new to fiddle from a clawhammer banjo background. This topic has probably been covered but couldn't find anything with a quick search. Just wondering can anyone explain ABC notation for me, how to read it? What it all means? etc
The fiddlers companion has millions of tunes all notated out and as I don't read music notation its a battle. ABC notation may be a way around this but I don't know where to start.
Any help appreciated!!
Thanks in advance!

rosinhead - Posted - 10/12/2010:  23:01:50

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This would be a good place to start. It breaks down the basic structure and how it works.

abcnotation.com/blog/2010/01/3...e-basics/

fiddlepogo - Posted - 10/12/2010:  23:21:00

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It's very popular in northwestern Europe for traditional music, and there's quite a few New England contradance tunes too. It's never really caught on with Old Time, though. IIRC, most of the Old Time tunes you'll find are in New England collections.

One of the primary advantages is that it uses normal ASCII characters, so
an abc could be sent right in the middle of an e-mail, then cut and pasted into it's own file which is really just a text (.txt) file, except you would name it with a .abc suffix instead.

hendrid - Posted - 10/13/2010:  04:21:01

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Just a way to show the notes.
On a fiddle versus string:
Simple ABC Where the first position notes are on a standard tuned fiddle, GDAE and what the open string and one, two and three finger notes are for each string.
where each ABC note is on each string and the relation to the ABC notation for each note.
----G, A, B, C D E F G A B c d e f g a b c' d' e' f'' ----
G String G, A, B, C--G G1 G2 G3(note the first three notes have commas)
D String D E F G--D D1 D2 D3
A String A B c d--A A1 A2 A3
E String e f g a b-- E E1 E2 E3 E4 (then to c' d' and so forth )

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Edited by - hendrid on 10/13/2010 08:11:10

carlb - Posted - 10/13/2010:  07:04:19

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I don't read abc either but I can read regular music notation. Cut and paste the abc file into:
concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
and it will convert it to a pdf file, a fine looking page of music notation.

Harry - Posted - 10/13/2010:  10:49:31

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Nice freeware to play ABC files and display and print music notation: ABC Explorer
abc.stalikez.info/abcex.php

hendrid - Posted - 10/13/2010:  13:56:01

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Thanks Harry. Concertina also allows a midi playing of the posted abc tune.

mswlogo - Posted - 10/13/2010:  17:45:21

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If you're gonna learn anything spend the time Learning to read Music Notation.

I can read music notation (and I only started 18 mos ago) and I it's a wonderfull tool to have. Not the fasted or most accurate but I can. I'm as proud of that accomplishment as I am playing the fiddle.

I just joined a band recently and they handed me a Music Book with 100's of tunes.
Went to Irish fiddle lessons in Boston. They hand out sheet music at the Jam to learn a new tune.
The folks that could only do by ear could only BEGIN to play AFTER the Music Readers learned it :)

You can get music notation for any ABC notation. ABCNotation should be just thought of a transmission tool (to get a tune from A to B).

ABC notation is more for computers reading it than people reading it.

Best thing I could have done is buy Notation Composer which can load any MIDI file (which includes any ABC file once converted) and get Sound, Notation and Where I am in the tune and playing alone all making my head tie it all together. My fingers know where to go from dots better than I can read off the note name on Notation or Fiddle. That's what I wanted I see a dot and my finger knows where to go without thinking about it.

You can read sheet music MUCH faster to look for patterns (not always individual notes), for phrases, repeats, structure that you won't get from a string of letters.

ABC Notation is awesome but not great to play a tune from directly. That's why so many tools exist to convert it to sheet music (to see it proper) or MIDI (to hear it).

Learn Music Notation !!! It will be painful at first but it will pay you back big time.

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Edited by - mswlogo on 10/13/2010 17:49:56

jefferylong - Posted - 10/14/2010:  10:05:12

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I love the ABC Notation, and if you download the TabEdit free program you can use the ABC Notation with that. Every time I learn a new fiddle tune, I transcribe the basic melody in TabEdit and then export it to ABC. Matter of fact, I've got a number of them here on the Hangout. Makes a very nice music lead sheet with the melody notes and chords I can then print out, or email to friends. I also send them to my iPhone and keep them all in My Songbook Program on my iPhone so I have them handy all the time - in case I come across an impromtu jam somewhere unexpectedly. Great tool. I highly recommend it.

fiddlepogo - Posted - 10/14/2010:  17:47:17

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The usefulness of reading notation varies greatly according to the genre.

Irish, yes, VERY useful,
Chief O'Neill pretty much guaranteed that when he compiled O'Neill's Music of Ireland.
Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and New England Contradance fiddling, likewise.
Old Time, Bluegrass, and Blues fiddle, not so much...
probably not Cajun either.

In order for reading notation to be very useful, there also has to have been a tradition of
writing tunes down and publishing tune books.
It also helps if unison playing is one of the goals in the genre.
If improvisation, or at least an original take on the melody is a major goal in the genre,
the usefulness of reading notation is limited.

Fidleir - Posted - 10/14/2010:  18:15:58

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quote:

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Originally posted by fiddlepogo

The usefulness of reading notation varies greatly according to the genre.

Irish, yes, VERY useful,
Chief O'Neill pretty much guaranteed that when he compiled O'Neill's Music of Ireland.
Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and New England Contradance fiddling, likewise.
Old Time, Bluegrass, and Blues fiddle, not so much...
probably not Cajun either.

In order for reading notation to be very useful, there also has to have been a tradition of
writing tunes down and publishing tune books.
It also helps if unison playing is one of the goals in the genre.

Uh - if you actually believe reading notation is "VERY useful" in Irish traditional music, I suggest you go post that on the TheSession.org and then duck.
If improvisation, or at least an original take on the melody is a major goal in the genre,
the usefulness of reading notation is limited.

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Fidleir - Posted - 10/14/2010:  18:16:43

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quote:

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Originally posted by fiddlepogo

The usefulness of reading notation varies greatly according to the genre.

Irish, yes, VERY useful,
Chief O'Neill pretty much guaranteed that when he compiled O'Neill's Music of Ireland.
Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and New England Contradance fiddling, likewise.
Old Time, Bluegrass, and Blues fiddle, not so much...
probably not Cajun either.

In order for reading notation to be very useful, there also has to have been a tradition of
writing tunes down and publishing tune books.
It also helps if unison playing is one of the goals in the genre.

Uh - if you actually believe reading notation is "VERY useful" in Irish traditional music, I suggest you go post that on the TheSession.org and then duck.
If improvisation, or at least an original take on the melody is a major goal in the genre,
the usefulness of reading notation is limited.

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OTJunky - Posted - 10/14/2010:  18:19:28

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidleir

Uh - if you actually believe reading notation is "VERY useful" in Irish traditional music, I suggest you go post that on the TheSession.org and then duck.

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--OTJ

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Edited by - OTJunky on 10/14/2010 18:20:22

BanjoBrad - Posted - 10/15/2010:  15:08:28

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The Fiddlers Companion has all their notated tunes in ABC.

Also, The ABC Project has a lot of good information on the system, to add to Rosinhead's link.

-B-

fiddlepogo - Posted - 10/15/2010:  23:45:03

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fidleir

Uh - if you actually believe reading notation is "VERY useful" in Irish traditional music, I suggest you go post that on the TheSession.org and then duck.

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Comhaltas doesn't seem to have a problem with it, since they publish Irish tune books....
and over at TheSession.org, they have the .abc notation for Irish tunes in their tune index
so they must think notation is at least SOMEWHAT useful.
If Irish tune books are published, and abc notation is included as a matter of course on an Irish music website,
there must be some DEMAND for it, or they wouldn't bother.
In view of that evidence of a demand for notation, maybe you should be skeptical of protests to the contrary!!!

Perhaps the "VERY" was a bit too strong, but
compared to Old Time players, many of whom don't use notation at all, Irish style players seem to use
notation a LOT, at least for learning... but I think I've heard it said they won't always admit to it!!!

And BTW, yes, I've also heard that TheSession.org is a very rude place...
and some of that rudeness seems to have rubbed off on you....
I'm one of the people on this forum that's most interested in Irish music,
(I was in a band in '76 that played 50% Irish/50% Old Time material- we all played two instruments,
and switched instruments when we switched genres... I played backup guitar for the Irish tunes, but I did it gladly because I love the music!)
and you seem to be doing your best to antagonize me.

If you actually want to get more people interested in Irish music,
this is the wrong way to go about it.

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Edited by - fiddlepogo on 10/15/2010 23:51:26

carlb - Posted - 10/16/2010:  06:38:03

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quote:

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[i]Originally posted by fiddlepogo...........since they publish Irish tune books....
and over at TheSession.org, they have the .abc notation for Irish tunes in their tune index
so they must think notation is at least SOMEWHAT useful.

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The gif files that The Session has for their tunes are pitiful. I always cut and paste the abc file in the Concertina site (posted above) to get a good looking music version. Also, you can paste entire tune books, at one time, into the Concertina site which will then generate a large pdf file with all the tunes. You don't have to do them one at a time.

OTJunky - Posted - 10/16/2010:  07:37:17

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quote:

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Originally posted by fiddlepogo

If you actually want to get more people interested in Irish music,
this is the wrong way to go about it.

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It's a bit of a thread hijack I guess, but...

In the older Buddhist tradition, it wasn't easy to become a monk. You had to journey to the monastery, knock on the door, and express your intention. Then they'd slam the door in your face and you had to hang around outside the monastery for months, sleeping on the ground and scrounging for food through whatever weather happened along. Occasionally, the monks would open the monastery door and hand you a bowl of rice or some such.

Then after you'd suffered enough they'd let you in and start the training.

It takes a lot of time and energy to train a monk. So, the thinking in that tradition was that you shouldn't waste it on people who haven't shown they really want it.

I've run into more than one Irish and Old time fiddler with a similar point of view - and have some sympathy for it. And I suspect it accounts for much of what's considered to be "rudeness" on some forums like thesession.org.

--OTJ

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Edited by - OTJunky on 10/16/2010 07:44:55

DougD - Posted - 10/17/2010:  21:22:20

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"In the winter I'm a Buddhist, in the summer I'm a nudist" - old fiddler's saying.

Sue B. - Posted - 12/01/2010:  11:10:05

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I'd encourage anyone who wants to read to learn conventional notation. It really isn't all that hard, and the graphic you get (trace a line through the noteheads to see this) gives a good sense of how the melody flows. With the recent increase in many areas of music participation & performance, more & more is available in printed form. If you ever ant to branch out to other genres of playing, like community orchestra, church band from the hymnal, etc., you'll already have the reading basics down. I certainly advocate for learning trad tunes by ear from skilled players or definitive recordings. But notation in one of its' original definition- to save up hints about how something "goes"- is pretty handy. Sue PS The ABC system doesn't make clear to me when I'm supposed to use a sharp or flat; I'm afraid it homogenizes tunes with stuff like modal scales or funky blues notes.

Learner - Posted - 12/01/2010:  11:41:17

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I agree with MSW and Sue B that reading standard notation is quite valuable. It's really rewarding (and useful) to be able to pick up notation and learn a new song when there is no CD, digital file, tape, or whaterver to listen to. Then you can interpret the basic structure that you've learned from the notation, and modify it through your own set of skills, style, and biases.

I have the Fiddler's Fakebook, and it's all written in standard notation. Duncan's and Wicklund's materials are also in standard notation. In fact, all of the materials that I use for practice are in standard notation.

Keep in mind that you can learn how to read notation without having to really learn music theory. Reading is the (relatively) easy part. And it makes you more versatile as a musician.

Frank

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Edited by - Learner on 12/01/2010 11:41:58

rafa - Posted - 12/01/2010:  17:27:00

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I don`t get the dilema, What is notation? It is written music!! Why would anyone not want to learn and understand it? I know its hard for some folks but if you have the ability and the want to, I feel it is an invaluable asset. IMHO

Oscar - Posted - 12/03/2010:  20:45:42

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The abc format was coined for easy transmission over internet and submitting songs in forums etc...there is no other universal format that can be used in readable text form, fully text searchable (let's say you know first few notes or want only songs that are in Gmajor etc...) and also can be used by a software to play it. Thanks to ABC there are literaly tens of thousands songs already submitted and archived by users but for some reason most of them are irish
Anyway, if you have ipad, there is an app caled tonebook that lets you import those tonebooks from the Abc repositories or individual abc songs (a tonebook is like a text file with hundreds of songs in it and there are hundreds of tonebooks all around the net) Then you can search for a song, see it in normal notation and also have it play in a tempo. I was always able to find any fiddle song I ever wanted to hear in the ABC format and often in like 10 variations. ABC is one giant archive of songs and there are few index servers for them.

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Edited by - Oscar on 12/03/2010 20:53:03

bj - Posted - 12/04/2010:  05:48:57

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quote:

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Why would anyone not want to learn and understand it? I know its hard for some folks but if you have the ability and the want to, I feel it is an invaluable asset. IMHO

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When you've developed the ability for the music to go in your ears and come out your fingers, then reading is largely unnecessary. Yes, I can read. However, I rarely bother. The few times I have, the version that's written down has very limited correlation to what I've heard at jams, festivals and performances. I've also run into people who learned "by the book" who could NOT play in a jam situation to save their soul.

But this horse has been beat to death, and we shouldn't be highjacking this thread to revive it.

Now, having said that, I like the whole idea of ABC and its searchability, but that's the geek in me speaking. I did use this search thing once, and managed to find the tune, though it took more than a few tries (see the "limited correlation" above and you'll know the problem!)