Hi there, I can mostly play this on the whistle, but would like to play around with bass and chords and such, so thought I would write it down in ABC. But I cannot get the rhythm right. Would anyone like to give me some help please? Pretty please? I am hopeless at transposing, rhythm, bar lines… well most of it, but I did give it a shot.
X:1
T:I dont want to dance
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:G
d2 d2 d>cB G2 z2 G2 G>G A B2 d2 cA B B>A A B2 G2 G2z2 B<A G<G A<GB2z2 G<G AGz2 G2FF2F>FGA z2
GG2GG2AB>B z2 BAA2A>GFD z2
Oh, and I think I transposed it from the original - I did the playing/transcribing from memory .
Seriously Phill, learning a little bit of basic music theory can’t be harder than getting a Dr. in front of your name. You’re only holding yourself back.
I’m not sure if you’re asking a serious question or not, but if the rhythm is throwing you, it may be because in 4/4 time you’re used to the emphasis being on the 1st and 3rd beats, but in reggae music the emphasis is on the 2nd and 4th beats (technically, it’s on the offbeat, but you double the tempo, call it 2 and 4, and people understand it better).
Hi JTC, yes it was meant as a serious question. I have a tune I play on the whistle that I thought was ‘I dont want to dance’, but the page Mike (thanks Mike) found throws serious doubt on my attempt at the tune. The original has five sharps (G sharp minor?) and I do not even approximate that. I guess that I am well of the mark with this and should probably give up.
Phill plays the low whistle excellently well, but he constantly turns to the board for the most basic questions of notation, rhythm, harmony and so on, protesting about how ignorant he is of these incredibly difficult issues. But he is Dr. Phill - how difficult can it really be? It seems to me that with a little bit of application he could greatly increase his overall musicianship - it wouldn’t take more than a couple of evenings’ worth of study. He’d benefit enormously, and he wouldn’t always be dependent on the forum to sort out elementary problems.
And - it would open a whole range of repertoire that is closed to him at the moment - several of the Telemann flute fantasia allegros, for instance, would be well within his reach. As would the Bach BWV1013 Sarabande (not so sure, but likely). How about Hotteterre? All beautiful baroque traverso music which can work well on the low whistle, if you transpose it to a suitable key. In a sense, this is as much part of the instrument’s repertoire as jigs and reels.
IMO, the first step would be to drop the ABC and use proper stave notation.
I’m sure Phill has the maturity to see that as an encouragement, not a cheap shot.
I don’t think it’s a case of using one or the other. ABC is great for exchanging tunes via the forum / email, whereas I imagine that most folk use the ABC to generate stave notation to play from.
I’ll have a go at transcribing the tune tonight if I get some time…
Sounds like you’re not familiar with ABC. The rules for stave and ABC are the same. ABC is used to generate stave. If you have the stave in front of you, you can write the ABC. Certainly one has a longer pedigree, and pedigrees do tend to incline some people to prejudice.
The fact is, in this day and age, stave and ABC are interchangeable - or they are if they are carried out properly.
Sure, for melodies and so on, but not the things Phill has been wanting to do recently - adding voices, harmonising, etc. ABC has its uses - I don’t deny it. But stave notation is far more flexible, powerful and expressive. If you want to study music beyond playing jigs, stave notation is pretty much the only way to go.
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