Perhaps as a beta tester of Finale version 1, and the writer of a dissertation with a chapter devoted to computer “encoding” languages my thoughts will have one relevance here.
First symbolic representations of music other than staff notation go back, as has been stated, literally centuries. Without going into much detail and leaving rhythm aside for now, the efforts (aside from tablature) essentially are of two sorts: representation of pitch as actual notes ( like ABC or fixed doh sofege), or representation of pitch as relative to some known but moveable home note ( I hesitate to say tonic though that is a reasonable way to think of things. Number notations like those used in some kinds of Chinese music and tonic solfa (sometimes called moveable doh) fall into the latter category.
Traditions gravitate toward whichever works in their tradition. For those of us playing music from Western European traditions representations like ABC help players most directly across the instruments commonly used. And there are indeed different versions of ABC style notation. By far the most common two are the traditional method still used in Ireland as mentioned above and the more modern on attributed quite correctly to Chris Walshaw. Sadly they do vary, but unless the method used in Ireland dies out, and I doubt it will, we’re stuck with two.
The wonderful thing about Walshaw ABC is that computer programs can easily transpose to other “keys” giving ABC the capability of satisfying moveable tonics too. And, for the music that most of us deal with it is quicker and easier than Finale or Sibelius, and can be used without a computer. I’m pretty much paper trained, but in a pinch I can read directly from ABC, though not at playing speed.
You can do pretty much anything with ABC. Someone actually transcribed a Beethoven Symphony score into ABC, which I think is as silly, and maybe more silly than the tonic solfa score to Beethoven’s 9th. But ABC’s forte is notating Western European trad music, and the collections on the net argue strongly that it is worth your while to learn the basics. And, to learn the Irish version too.
(Removing professorial hat and going back to being a normal person)
Continuing with that old tradition of collecting tunes into books, I keep a set of hand written tunes books of my own. I don’t do well at all with going by ear – though I’ve managed to write out maybe a half dozen tunes I like that way – but if I find something I like in another collection, I just dutifully copy it into my own books!
I started writing down the tunes I learned around 1981, in the best hand I could manage, and kept it up for maybe a decade and a half. At that point it became easier to store tunes on the computer and the whole manuscript thing started to seem too self indulgent and less practical from there on. These days, learning a new tune I mostly do a quick scribble on music ms paper or just feed an ABC directly into the machine for easy storage and retrieval.
Below a few hornpipes I learned and wrote down during the autumn of 1983 and a scribble made a few months ago, Séamus Ennis’ 12/8 version of the Whistling Thief, which does the job just as well.
Definitely some beautiful work when done well. For anyone looking for reputable supplier of calligraphy items you might try here: http://www.johnnealbooks.com/
And, I know the C&F rules about what shouldn’t be talked about on this forum so I won’t discuss the higher level, however, if anyone is interested in how early manuscripts/books were written and illuminated I’d suggest watching this DVD about how the calligraphers prepared to undertake their commissioned task. The DVD is excellent. And since the DVD the particular book has been produced. http://www.saintjohnsbible.org/Products/9059/the-illuminator-and-a-bible-for-the-21st-century.aspx
Handwritten musical notation seems like just another way to get the music into one’s head as well as provide hard copy. Yes, I realize this may be going backwards with all the gadgets and internet, but, artsy ways aren’t always lost.
I suppose it’s whatever a person is used to, but with normal notation I can see the shape of the tune at a glance, see where it dwells in an area, see where there are large leaps, see the arpeggios, see the note density, even if I’m not close enough to be able to read the exact notes.
Being that I’m a visual person (an artist by trade) that works for me. A string of letters just doesn’t look like the sound.
Another thing, if you have music paper, writing dots is much faster than writing letters. With a pencil I’ll do a dot with a single short stroke, and can write down things very quickly.
I’m primarily a visual learner myself. I’m working very hard to utilize my ear (auditory) and very slowly its working. Visually I can just glance at the staff notation and the tune appears like a line graph which somewhat registers in my head, while all the details and intricacies just have to be eventually worked out with more practice. Its always slow going though.
Very nicely done! I can’t claim so nice a hand, though:
I just like the look of the old time tune books and thought it would be neat to carry on with that. Certainly computer / online storage & retrieval have their clear advantages (like one could theoretically store every tune and every variant, one would never have to take a half hour copying out by hand, etc); but there is something quite satisfying about copying out by hand as well.
