John Chambers wrote:
>John Walsh wrote:
>| Frank Nordberg wrote:
>| >A problem with the O'Neill tunes is that many of them doesn't
>| >seem to have a clearly defined tonal centre at all.
>|
>| Ah, that's interesting. I think it's one of the great interests
>| of the tunes, rather than a problem, but of course Frank's talking about
>| notational questions, not musical interest here.
>
>It's interesting, but as for it being a problem, I'd say that the
>current buzz phrase "Deal with it!" applies. Traditional Irish music
>has a lot of examples of tunes without a clear tonal center. Usually
>the feel is as if the tune were "wavering" between two (or sometimes
>three) tonal centers, with none the main center. It can't be fixed;
>it's part of the style. The tunes like this aren't the "norm"; they
>are a minority. But they are definitely part of the tradition and
>something that you need to be familiar with if you want to really
>understand the style. This can bother people coming from other styles
>that always have clear tonal centers. It is a minor problem with ABC,
>which wants you to specify a tonic note. So you just pick one of the
>likely tonics, and tell yourself that it's not a major sin.
I suggest that you use the tonic which applies to the _start_ of the
tune. That way, an accompanist will at least know what chord to play
first.
You are right about such tunes being in a minority. I've just
finished checking Frank's key assignments using the analysis algorithm
built into the latest BarFly. I don't have the actual results handy,
but from memory 90% of the time it agreed with Frank. Of the remaining
50 tunes, rather more than half were examples which ended on notes
other than the tonic (but were otherwise unambiguous). Most of the
rest had parts in different keys, with the un-annotated key change
corresponding to the beginning of a new part. Finally, I think there
were about four (out of 500) tunes which were truly ambiguous, plus
a couple which BarFly got totally wrong.
>One of my favorite examples is the well-known Blarney Pilgrim. I just
>checked with my tune finder, and there are 35 instances on the Web.
>About 2/3 are in G; the other 1/3 are in Dmix. The tune is highly
>ambiguous about which is the tonic center. I've found that, although
>it can be harmonized with chords, I like it better with just a quiet
>drone, and the drone note should be D. But this doesn't mean that D
>is the tonic, because a drone on the 5th is quite normal in Irish and
>Scottish music. The tune is almost pentatonic, but there are a few C
>naturals. To most ears, this would put it in G major, but to ears
>attuned to the Mixolydian scale would make it Dmix. And the fact that
>it starts and ends on the low D is probably a point of tension to
>many ears ("It's not resolved"), but a perfectly satisfying ending to
>ears attuned to this style of music.
I'll see what BarFly gives for it when I get home in a couple of hours.
>| [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>| >and I realize I am in the minority on this, but I continue to feel
>| >that the K: field should describe the number of sharps or flats
>| >without naming a tonic and/or a mode.
>|
>| Well, if you'll amend that to "...the K: field should *be able* to
>| describe the number of sharps or flats without naming a tonic and/or mode"
>| you might not be in the minority. At least you wouldn't be alone, for I'd
>| agree. But I think it should also be able to describe the tonic and/or
>| mode, along with a quite few other possibilities.
>
>Agreed. This is what I've done with my doctored abc2ps that accepts
>the extended syntax
> K:<tonic><mode><accidentals>
>As a computerized music notation, one of the nice things about ABC is
>that it allows you to state the tonic and mode, unlike standard staff
>notation. This is useful for searches, especially when transcribers
>get it right. But it's more limiting than
> K:<accidentals>
>This should be allowed, for various reasons. Frank has pointed out
>one of the musical reasons: There are musical styles that lack a
>clear tonic. For such music, requiring a tonic is inappropriate and
>misleading, and leads to "false positives" in searches.
>
>This is a different argument from the usual one based on transcriber
>ignorance: It's better to see just K:^f than, for example, K:G when
>the correct key is K:Em or K:Adorian or K:Dmix. K:^f is a way of
>saying "I don't know what the tonic is, but the f's are (mostly)
>sharp. With Irish music, you do see cases where what you'd like to
>say is "Well, all the f's are sharp, but it's not clear whether the
>tonic is G or D, and a few bars seems to have A as the tonic center."
>I doubt that we'd want to have an explicit ABC notation for this.
I'll repeat what I said before on this subject. If this change in standard
becomes accepted, the vast majority of users will use it not just for
the ambiguous tunes where it is appropriate, but for ALL transcriptions.
We will have lost what is one of the major advantages of abc over
conventional notation for the sake of dealing with a theoretical
problem applying to a very small number of tunes.
Phil Taylor
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