cheat sheet

Irish Flute
1

there you are sittin there , and Jonjoe says , we’ll play the Cat in the Blender , followed by the Snotser’s Night in the Joy , and the one that goes after it .
you are aware that the house is really buzzin , and although you could likely play this set in your sleep , your mind has gone bland , sorry , blank.
so you think , if only i was at home , watching tv , this wouldn’t be a problem for me .

any ideas , has it already been posted , as to how to set it up?
a cheat sheet , for an upcoming gig .
can anyone point me to the thread , if it’s already been done ?
or maybe there’s a site with this already set up ?

i want to be able to print off a list of tunes , on an A4 sheet of paper , and just on the right hand side of each tune name , the first 2 or 3 bars of the tune .

instructions in eejit proof steps please .

thanks in advance

jim troy

2

You could just get a really fine Sharpie and write them on the inside of your forearms. You’d need only look down while you flute was up and not miss a beat!

That would make an interesting tattoo.



Cat in the Blender!

I must have that tune!

:stuck_out_tongue:

3

In the back of the Mike Rafferty book (300 tunes), there is a “first notes index”. It uses the ABC format to write out the first four measures of each tune in one column and then in the next column the name of the tune. It is set up like a spreadsheet. I’ll see if I can get a page scanned in the next couple of minutes and post it for you to see.

4

Here is a scan of one of the pages. (Of course you would not need the two columns used for the page and tune number.) If you set up something like this, use a small font, and smaller margins, you could fit quite a few tunes on one page.

5

the writing on the forearm would not be an option , Aanvil , as that area is taken up with a tatoo of a pierced heart , with “Hammy” written over “Sam” , written over some pakistani flute makers logo , written over an "I Love Comhaltas " tatoo .

Meadbh , the spread sheet thing , with the abc , just makes my eyes go all glassy , and i get this throbbing in some deep recess of the brain .

but that would be something very much like i need , but it would have to be staff notation .
not knocking abc notation , just that at 61 and 3/4 years , my brain has been time welded into staff notation . i can see the shape of the tune , like .

so here’s what i need .

i can type and print the names , and arrange the sets , etc , no bother .
i just need to get the staff notation of the tune , cut the first three bars , or so , and paste that beside the tune name .
it seems like such an easy thing to me , maybe i just need a mac , people tell they can do spells and stuff .

iv’e tried to do that with my Harmony Programme ,(the cut and paste , not the spells ) no deal . ive’ tried to cut it from various tune sites , nothing doing .

i am searching through my friends ,(brains) and hopefully one of them will come up with the answer .
when it comes , i’ll post it here

6

by the way , Meadhbh , thanks for taking the time to do that scan .

your gold star is in the post 8¬)

7

Jim,

If you go to JC’s Tunefinder

http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind

find the tune you want in abc form, thus

X: 1
T:The Dawn
M:4/4
L:1/8
F:http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/mirror/rigel.csuchico.edu/Dawn.abc 2007-06-12 03:55:21 UT
K:A
E|:A,2 CE D2 FA|E2 GB Acec|d2 (3fff ecAc|B3 B BAFA|
A,2 CE DFAF|EGBG Acec|df (3fef ecAc|1 BdcA BA A2 :|2 BdcA BAAB ||
c2 eB fcec|AGAc BAFA|E3 c cBAc|defg afed|
c2 ec fcec|AGAc BAFA|1 E2 c cBAc dfed|cA A6 B :|2 E3 F ABce|dfed cAAE|>|

then copy and paste the abc’s of just the first couple of bars (making sure you end the second bar with a | so the thing knows that’s the end of the bar; also, delete the extraneous stuff like F:http:yadayadayada in the abc tune info, or the Convertomatic will print a funny first line) into the TuneOTron/Convertomatic at

http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

thus and suchly

X: 1
T:The Dawn
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:A
E|:A,2 CE D2 FA|E2 GB Acec|


, Bob should be your proverbial uncle. In my test, he seemed to be mine.

As for getting the collected “tune clues” onto one A4 sheet, I’m not sure – you may have to print them out, cut them with scissors and tape them all onto one big sheet.

There’s also a neat little piece of freeware called Five Line Skink ( http://celticmusic.ca/skink.html ) that could work – I imagine you just copy and paste the abc pieces you want into it one tune after another, and bingo, a whole file of instant notation for just the parts you want.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your gig! Will you teach us Snot in the Blender after you’ve survived it?

:slight_smile:

8

I did that with my ever-expanding list of tunes I “know”, but obviously still need some reminders at times. It helps a lot for a while, though learning to listen better makes it much less necessary.

9

How about Cat in a beer box?

Or this tune would be better, Cat in a Bohdran…

10

If you have your tunes in abc format you can use ABCMUS2
by Henrik Norbek http://www.norbeck.nu/abcmus/.

This software has a “Make List/Index Etc” function in the File menu.
You can choose what type of list you want:
cheet sheet or index of various kinds,
edit the type if you need to customise it,
choose which files to use as source and which file it should output in.

It is great if you are used to read directly from abc notation.

11

Thanks Hans for the tip on abcmus cheat sheets. I do have a couple of questions:

  1. Is there an easy way to convert the cheat sheet to staff notation?
  2. Can I make a cheat sheet showing the first two(?) bars of each part of a tune?
12

Ceilidh Soc. website has an excellent “make your own tune book” thingy that lets you mark all the tunes you want and then produce a tunebook. The index page makes an excellent cheat sheet. Unfortunately you can only select tunes from their list.

http://www.ceilidhsoc.org/music.html

Harder work is to use some notation software (I have Noteworthy - but that’s a whole other topic, you may even be able use the notation in ABCNAvigator - must check that!) and make up a spreadsheet or database using something Windozey, where you enter the tune name, key, type (or whatever else you want) and a cut 'n paste of the first few bars from the notation software (yes you can do that - notation software runs it’s own set of fonts and can be copied into Word/Access/Excel or whatever in the same way as text.)

Chris

13

Unfortunately a no to both.
If you want each tune’s first two bars for all parts
you need to edit the abc tune file itself,
and remove all the other bars etc.
You may end up with a nice file suitable for printing
as a cheet sheet.

That looks very promising. Now I just need that software…
Or add lots of tunes there.

14

Maybe you could use Finale to “write out” what you need. There are free versions of it that can easily be downloaded. Sorry the ABC’s didn’t work for you. I’m a “dot reader” too (the ABC’s make my head hurt :wink: ), but I thought I’d toss the suggestion out there.

15

I simply have some manuscript paper and have written the first 2 - 4 measures of tunes, usually 2 to the staff. So you get 20 or so to the page and I now have about 8 or 10 pages stapled together. I continue to add pages as needed. I keep a good copy at home - the travelling copy gets a bit tattered and worn. I know it’s cheating but I can’t stand just sitting there when we have drawn a blank, a little nudge - the first few notes is all I need. (I’m a dots kinda guy)

16

Hi Jim,
I may have a simple solution. If you pull up the tune on the JC site. It gives you the option to view the dots as a “GIF” file. If you open the file with your windows paint program or what ever program you use to edit a picture ie: Photoshop. Just crop out the section of dots you want, say the 1st four measures and paste them into Word or Excel or something similar. You can even just crop out the Name and first row of dots and you won’t have to type in the name of the tune in Word or Excel. No need to go to a Mac (stay away from the Dark Side). :astonished:
Hope this helps.
-Clay

17

jayz , wha ? information clockin in at a rate of knots !

just had a quick visit and saw all the help . i’ll look at it later , and do a good suss on it
just a little busy moving to my country seat , at the moment .

i shall be cutting and pasting my bags, baggage and furniture, in real time .

thanks to all the nice people 8¬)

(flute players are the best , really . it just gets me , right there .)

18

Oddly enough I just came across this thread. To do what Jim Troy wants, cheat sheet of dots, can be done similar to the way I made the Raff books, with Jim Vint’s abc2win programme.

You do have to use abcs to set it up, but you could collect those in a folder by titles you want, whether you read them or not. Then you’d make your own abc file out of only the first couple bars of each tune as already mentioned.

When you open up the abc2win prog, click on the tunes in the list to put them on a page. When the page is full you can copy it as a picture file. Call that page1 and continue along.. it’s not hard to use. It’s a quicker way to get more than one tune on a page than if you do each one singly on the Tune0tron. Also you don’t have to purchase the print feature to do it that way so it’s free.

19

Glad you resurrected this thread, because dammit Jim, you never did give us Snot in a Blender … Snot is a Blinder … Cat in a Suitcase. … Or whatever the heck that was.

20

this is a reminder to you all, that what you write on the internet , may well come back to bite you on the ass ..

thank you , lesl, for digging up this thread . you went back through 2 years ? wow ..

i hadn’t done anything about that until just now , having had no cop on , with this Mac (feel the farce , Luke ) , so i grabbed a tune in staff notation , cut and pasted the the first three bars on the right side of the page ( Text Edit) and typed the name on the left . got another , did the same ,easy peasy , and now am ready for gig and the dancing .

hooray for Mac and the dark side .

and dagnab it ,Cathy , you are disgraceful , but your’e my type :stuck_out_tongue: , so , i’ll build that tune , "Snottser’s Last Night in the Joy " and dedicate it to you .

(the Joy is a rest home , smack (sic) in the middle of Dublin City, Snottser is a character also known as Greensleeves , and don’t be having your dinner , when you suss that one out )