On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Phil Taylor wrote:
> I had learned music on an instrument which is totally chromatic,
> to the extent that the black notes are not marked in any way as being
> different from the white notes. Electric guitar players tend to
> avoid the open strings (because they sound different, and tend to
> feedback at high volume levels) and if you do that, there is really
> no difference between the keys of C and D - you just play the same
> pattern of notes two places higher up the fingerboard. What I needed
> was to know the key note, and whether it was major or minor, and I
> resented the fact that I had to play mechanically through the whole
> tune several times and get the tune into my head before I could extract
> that piece of information.
That's an interesting thought about the guitar; but it's true of all
instruments - as you say, it's information that isn't contained in the key
signature (unless you play the sort of music described by 'elementary
theory', where a key signature gives you a choice of 1 major key and one
minor, which helps to reduce the choices)
> I realise that placing this information in the notation places the
> onus of figuring out the key and mode on the transcriber, rather
> than on the reader. This is particularly the case when the transcriber
> is working from printed music. I realise that many people who do
> transcription resent the extra effort which that imposes. However,
> I feel that that's as it should be, since transcription is a job which
> only needs to be done once, whereas the abc from that transcription may
> be read by thousands of readers.
As someone who's done a fair amount of transcription (and still has a lot
more to do "when the tuits arrive") - I agree. It can cost extra thinking
time, but it's part of the job. Also, it's a part of the job that I
particularly want done, since the ability to do things like search for
tunes on a particular tonic is ine of the things I really like about abc.
Incidentally (thinking of the amount of transcription I've done), I
finally got the update to http://www.leeds.ac.uk.music/Info/RRTuneBk
finished a few days ago. It's been in the works since August of last year.
And I'm not going to make it obsolete by typing up anything else for ...
ooh, days, I hope :)
--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
