So as mentioned in a previous post, I decided to try using the PlayScore2 app to really see if I could convert all that sheet music published in the huge Milliner-Koken Collection sheet music book into audible music. And YES, it can be done. Took a photo of the very first tune in that big M-K collection book which happens to be Abe's Retreat. I used my Sony RX100 iii which is now a couple of year old. It's about equivalent to the cameras that come built into those latest iPhone/Android cell phones. PlayScore2 does a fantastic job ( well, at least from my perspective) in reading a jpg or PDF sheet music image and turns it into an audible rendition of what I guess Clare Milliner intended. It's kind of important to avoid skewing the image though. PlayScore2 likes all those lines and chicken track marks as horizontal and straight as possible.
You can hear what it sounded like in the uploaded mp3 file which I made with Audacity.
Well that's pretty cool. Now you can teach us all those tunes in that huge collection!
That's pretty cool!
That's good, until you compare it with the field recording of Emory Bailey: slippery-hill.com/content/abes-retreat
Listening to a computer generated MIDI piano playing a tune from sheet music seems pretty far removed from sharing musical discoveries with friends and neighbors on the back porch, but if it helps you learn, and that's what you have, that's great.
Kind of like text to speech software only with music. Not really the way you want to hear poetry.
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Originally posted by DougDThat's good, until you compare it with the field recording of Emory Bailey: slippery-hill.com/content/abes-retreat
Listening to a computer generated MIDI piano playing a tune from sheet music seems pretty far removed from sharing musical discoveries with friends and neighbors on the back porch, but if it helps you learn, and that's what you have, that's great.
Kind of like text to speech software only with music. Not really the way you want to hear poetry.
Doug - TOTALLY agree with you on the computer generated artificial sound. But then, isn't that what the entire bound M-K Collection consists of and what sheet music kinda represents? Having said that, I think that immense work was Clare's way of preserving something she thought was important. Sure, as you said in a previous post on this subject and also above, there are field recordings of artists playing many of those tunes on the Slippery Hill website. But, as I mentioned, many are of those are pretty crummy and a dubious source for learning how to play the tune.
There's something very basic at the core of a discussion like this and I think it relates to how each of us learn to play an OT tune. In my mind, though I rarely achieve it, it's getting at the very core of the tune. To do that you have to have something like the bare bones of that tune in your head. After that you need to spend time with it until it starts coming out like something your satisfied with. Peggy's friend and teacher Dwight Diller said you had to eat a peck o salt with a tune before you can play it well. So, my effort at doing this was mostly a whim, just to see if it could be done. I kinda think the artificial sound of the example I posted above does get at the bare bones of Abe's Retreat. Anyhow, I hope there's something here that might be helpful to anyone who can't read sheet music, or who reads it poorly like me, explore the M-K Collection, an incredible source of OT music.
Naturally, just an opinion, something someone might find useful or forget about.
Cool technology. Regarding that transcription, shouldn't the key signature have one sharp instead of having accidentals for all the G and C notes? Something like that and the lack of bar lines (I know that's a feature of the whole M-K collection) would make it much more difficult to read.
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Originally posted by DougDThat's good, until you compare it with the field recording of Emory Bailey: slippery-hill.com/content/abes-retreat
I'll second that!
As far as how the transcript appears...who wrote that? I thought the whole point was to get the gist of the tune without having to suffer through making sense of sketchy field recordings (not always, but a lot are) or without having to learn to read music or fumble through reading it if you're just not up to snuff on reading dots and translating them into a fiddle tune.
Anyway...might make learning all the multitude of tunes easier, hey? Seems like it to me.
screecher - There are different views on how to notate "modal" tunes. First of all, that's how they're described in the M-K Collection, with no mention of the actual "mode." I've known Walt since 1966 and that's how we described them then. I didn't see terms like "Mixolydian" or "Dorian" until I came to the FHO. There are no C notes in the B part of this tune, so its a little hard to say.
Anyway, this could have been written with one sharp, which cleans up the notation a little, although its not so bad in this case. I like that approach, but the problem is that people will describe the tune as being in G (or D if you use two sharps).
Using three sharps clearly shows that the tune is in A, but it can result in a little more cluttered score. I think both methods are used, and neither is really "right." Notation is just a guide to how to play the piece anyway, but it helps if its as clear and clean as possible.
Peggy, that transcription is from the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes. Who do you think wrote it?
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Originally posted by groundhogpeggyAs far as how the transcript appears...who wrote that? I thought the whole point was to get the gist of the tune without having to suffer through making sense of sketchy field recordings (not always, but a lot are) or without having to learn to read music or fumble through reading it if you're just not up to snuff on reading dots and translating them into a fiddle tune.
Anyway...might make learning all the multitude of tunes easier, hey? Seems like it to me.
Not to "poo-poo" the idea, but I agree with Peggy. For you to use any music score for learning a tune, you can only assume that it is correct (what is correct?). In my opinion, unless it was written down by the author, it's just one person's idea of how they heard it being played by someone else - and then do their best when writing it down. To me, that isn't going to be much different than learning to play what you think you hear - from anyone's performance. You are almost always learning the core of someone's interpretation / version of a tune written by someone else. I like the idea of being able to learn from a written manuscript. I admire folks who can / do. But I'm not willing to put forth the effort needed to become proficient. That's just me.
I personally like to listen to as many versions of a tune as I can. YouTube is great for that. Even the old scratchy, poorly recorded oldest versions (not always done be the author). And the version I decide to learn will usually always be the one I like best. That has always worked best for me. But... it's not uncommon for me to learn a tune and then find out later that I learned a version that is not known by my session mates. The differences are usually minor and they work out ok, but sometimes... it's pretty much a different tune altogether. I usually tell everyone whose version I learned from, more so than who wrote it or recorded it first.
And then there is the idea of "making it your own"... Or, how to incorporate "your style of playing".
...and there is nothing wrong with any of that!
The only problem is the one that gets started when folks aren't willing to adapt and agree - for whatever reason. The magic is more likely to happen when they do. It seems most all recordings I hear are unique, with their own variations to everyone else's version of a tune - they had to adapt to each other on what would get recorded and agree that what they were doing was worth recording.
I think the essential good in going to a collection of tunes in a book - is the possibility of finding an "obscure" tune that no one else plays / or has heard. In that case no one can really say that you're not playing it right. 
Everyone gets to learn it from the same "page".
Edited by - tonyelder on 07/11/2024 10:35:15
Clare Milliner is the only person I know who writes done notation while listening, without the use of an instrument Probably a skill that was better known more in the 19th century. What a skill to have!
Gotta tell ya folks, learning Abe's Retreat the way Emory Bailey plays it and Clare Milliner has it transcribed in the M-K Collection has been no small task. Spent these past couple of hours trying to get all those modal notes in there and much as a mostly ear learner like me hates to admit, I've had to look cross-eyed at those dots to make sure I'm getting em' all in there. But, I'll also say the PlayScore 2 audio helps, mechanical as it well may be. It's gonna take me awhile to feel comfortable playing this tune. But, I doubt I'd be this far along with it using just sheet music, or even Emory's S-H recording. BTW - I don't think anyone knows who wrote it. The Session website has it classed as an Irish reel, three variations in keys of D and G. Traditional Tune Archive has it also listed under titles The Battle of Bull Run and Manassas Junction.
Doug, by asking who wrote it...I meant what difference does it make how it's notated, when the whole point is to make it audible somehow to other people who would like to learn it. Like...who in the world cares how they put their sharps and flats or whatever.
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Originally posted by groundhogpeggyAs far as how the transcript appears...who wrote that? I thought the whole point was to get the gist of the tune without having to suffer through making sense of sketchy field recordings (not always, but a lot are) or without having to learn to read music or fumble through reading it if you're just not up to snuff on reading dots and translating them into a fiddle tune.
Anyway...might make learning all the multitude of tunes easier, hey? Seems like it to me.
I've never felt I had to "suffer" though listening to old players or recordings, rather quite enjoyed listening to the music on those recordings. Most of how learned was that aural transmission... listening to humans play music. For me "listening" is not just hearing; pitch and linear sequence of note by note, timing... and often involves singing/diddling/humming the tune as music... and experiencing the enjoyment of the music. Generally listening to a real musician's playing is what inspires me to want to play a tune; If it's good music, I can get past the poor non hi-fi recording. (I grew up with lo-fi AM radio, small speaker or car). For me, I still find this the easiest way to learn tunes.
This technology I don't see as particularly new, is essentially like the abc/MIDI from the early 90's, typing in simple text abc letters... the only difference is not having to enter in the text. Keep in mind, at the time it came out, wasn't easy access to a lot of actual recordings... to download, streaming, Youtube... internet was new, and internet speed was slow, actual audio files considered big; and was not much software to change tempo/slow down, or change pitch of actual recordings. So simple text abc provided some idea of how tunes sounded. There are lot's of collections of abc files already made, just paste them into an abc player. Here's Abe's Retreat on Fiddler's Companion - Tunearch. https://tunearch.org/wiki/Abe%27s_Retreat Especially for Irish tunes there are massive collections. (like the session.org)
That said, there are inherent shortcomings of those abc/MIDI, similar shortcomings of learning from notation; some tunes can be quite difficult to hear the musicality from just the notes and timing. Leaves out a lot of important aspects. Kind of like trying to learn a song/singing from an old text to speech software. I recall "Candy Girl", the abc file was sort of unrecognizable, didn't sound like much anyone would want to play. As many noticed, would sometimes hear folks playing a tune at a Irish session, that sounded like the abc/MIDI file; sometimes took effort to recognize what they are trying to play.
I am not sure I see the use much these days? Some still use it (esp Irish folks). But seems like there is just so much access to actual musician recordings. Besides the old scratchy field recording, often quite a few others, that have bit more modern clarity. https://youtu.be/THHjrjP7Ri4 (look at that Walt and Clare); https://youtu.be/4oXlqk3K1sg ; https://youtu.be/AfHcz3afjs4 and many others to choose, IMO will get you closer to the tune than abc/MIDI file.
Of course there are still tunes I want to play, and unable to find a recording to listen to; I found for myself, in learning to read; some aspects of reading standard notation make it overall easier to grasp the tune; than was bothering with abc files. YMMV. But in question of how it's written, number of sharps/flats; or the time signature, bar lines (or lack of)... I find they are useful to me, to being able to more quickly read and grasp the tune; It's similar in how I also play by ear... starts with structure/framework; that it's in A Dorian, and in 2/4 meter... quickly frames my mind around the tune, rhythm and harmonic frame, and sense of phrasing. It's not a huge deal though, as I can generally work out those.
Edited by - alaskafiddler on 07/12/2024 05:27:19
No argument there...I guess my choice of the word, "suffer," could be taken as a bad thing, but I'm assuming (uh-oh) most people will get my drift so I don't have to stop and consider each meaning possible of every word as I rapidly type while a million others issues are going on at the same time. So...yeah I don't disagree with any of the above. I don't suffer when I listen to music, except for junk on the radio and such...I mean, not suffer in the same way as when one has the flu...I might struggle through a bad old recording of someone up in years who has become too shaky to play and they are grappling to remember what they once played decades ago...I might suffer to make out what they are trying to play...that's all i meant. Good lord, please don't get too picky about word choices; I ain't runnin' for office, just chattin' with pals.
