[scots-l] abc matters and the Calvert Collection - Kelso 1799
Funny what you can get up to on a rainy day! I thought I'd never really find any use for abc which is common currency on this list and others dealing with traditional music. I downloaded a copy of ABC2 Win and looked at all the collections on the web that I could find. I am amazed at the patience of people like Jack Campin, Charles Gore, Nigel Gatherer and Richard Robinson who have worked their way through huge collections. Maybe there is something in this abc format I thought. So I tried a few tunes from the Calvert Collection of 1799(?). I tried all the features that were on offer and was very pleasantly surpised. I manged to notate just about everything I wanted. It seems to cope with most effects. I then had the idea of doing as the above mentioned abc heroes. Why not transcribe the whole of the Calvert Collection? After initial enthusiasm - it is addictive in a way, I began to wonder about the value of such an enterprise. In many ways the value to us today is that it gives us an idea of the kind of music played at the time. It is clearly aimed at a well heeled and musically literate audience. The price of five shilling seems quite high. Also there are bass parts for almost all the tunes. Many are fairly pedestrian but some have been well written, by Calvert himself I would guess. Also several tunes have a second violin part. There are double stoppings, trills and ties in many of the tunes. Some tunes are extended by variations. "Flat Keys" are used regularly. The collection has nothing like the importance of the Aird Collections which it is suggested Burns used as source for many of his tunes. I am not sure that abc is the best medium for it as some tunes have second parts and good bass lines. There is the local interest and 200 year old version of well kent tunes. It is also interesteing to see; The Fall of Paris and the Sea Captains - tunes that appear in O'Neills in very similar versions. Also odd is the small number of Kelso tunes that do not appear - "We'll all to Kelso go" which seem like a Northumbrian pipe tune", Kelso Races (Gow Collection), and Kelso Lasses which I do not have access to. So, the question is; is anyone interested in this collection enough to help me out with the abc work? Otherwise I do not think it will ever get done. If you are prepared to do say ten tunes, I'll send you a photocopy of the book. You can then email me the section of the abc file. I'll then splice the offerings together and offer it to the usual sites. ANyone interested. If you want the photocopies but do not want to any abc work, just send me a tape of some intersinting Scottish Music - a legal version - and I'll send you the copy of the Calvert Collection. Below you will find the abc file I have created. I have stuck to Calvert's spelling of the titles including the "f" for "s". Rather iritating! For authenticity change your font to a distressed serif font! I am new to abc. I formatted the tunes in the way below to help with inputting the data. I know that there are people who actually read the stuff by sight straight onto an instrument. That must be really handy. Also I know that Nigel Gather does it all in a text editor with no abc software of any kind, That is amazing! So if you want to comment on my first attempts - please be kind - see below Philip W _ %A %Collection %of %Marches Quick Steps %Strathspeys Reels %Some Seconds c Adapted for the %Violin and Violoncello Harp %or %PIANO FORTE %by %THOMAS CALVERT KELSO %Price -- 5/- %Printed for the Author and to be had at Mr. N. Stewart Co. Music %Sellers No. 37 South Bridge Street Edin.r And at Thomas Calvert %Mufician Kelfo _ Where may be had a Variety of Music and %Inftruments, Inftruments lent out Tun'd and Repaired. X: 1 T:God fave the King M:3/4 L:1/8 S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 1 K:C X: 2 T:O'er the Moor for a' that M:C X: 3 T:The Berwickshire Yeomanry's March M:C S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 2 X: 4 T:The Lasses of Fifheraw S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 2 X: 5 T:The Lafses of the Weft S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 2 X: 6 T:The Kelso Volunteers March S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 3 X: 7 T:The Kelso Volunteers Quick Step S:Thomas Calvert Collection - page 3 X: 8 T:Trip to Kelfo M:6/8 L:1/8 R:jig B:Thomas Calvert Collection - Page 4 K:A E| ABA c2 A| e2 A c2 A| BcB d2B| f2 Bd cB | ABA c2 A| e2 A c2 A| fga e2 d| cd B A2 | | e| aga g2 e| fdf ecA | ABA aga | Acd efg | aga g2 e| fdf ecA fga e2 d| cd B A2 e| aga g2 e| fdf ecA | ABA aga | Acd efg | aga geg | fdf ecA | fga e2 d| cd B A2 || X: 9 T:The Roxburghfire Cavalry Yeomanry's March X: 10 T:The Quickstep X: 11 T:Mifs Sufanna Rentons Reel X: 12 The Lady's Delight X: 13 T:Roxburgh Caftle M:C L:1/8 Q:140 R:reel B:Calvert Collection - Page 6 K:A cB| AEAc ecec | d2 df ecBA | d2 fd c2 ec | B2 B2 B2 cB| AEAc ecec | dfdf ecBA | fgaf edcB | A2 A2 A2|| ef/2g/2 |
Re: [scots-l] abc matters and the Calvert Collection - Kelso 1799
Philip Whittaker wrote: Maybe there is something in this abc format I thought. So I tried a few tunes from the Calvert Collection of 1799(?). I tried all the features that were on offer and was very pleasantly surpised. I manged to notate just about everything I wanted. It seems to cope with most effects. I then had the idea of doing as the above mentioned abc heroes. Why not transcribe the whole of the Calvert Collection? I've never heard of this or seen it before your mention, Philip, despite being in Kelso and having a fairly good selection of books about the town - not mentioned. Also odd is the small number of Kelso tunes that do not appear - "We'll all to Kelso go" which seem like a Northumbrian pipe tune", Kelso Races (Gow Collection), and Kelso Lasses which I do not have access to. It would be an interesting project to collect tunes which mention Kelso. One of my favourites is The Runaway Bride, which contains the words 'She gart the clap gang through the toon', so easily misunderstood by modern ears... There's another one called the Goodwife of Kelso or something like it, have to find it again, which is a simple comedy song about a wife trying to poison her husband until he finally manages to push her in the Tweed and drown her. Just like it is today! ANyone interested. If you want the photocopies but do not want to any abc work, just send me a tape of some intersinting Scottish Music - a legal version - and I'll send you the copy of the Calvert Collection. I would love a photocopy of this. I can trade you a copy of Bremner's Instructions and tunes for the guitar 1759 which are mainly Scottish, written as if in the key of C. Below you will find the abc file I have created. I have stuck to Calvert's spelling of the titles including the "f" for "s". Rather iritating! For authenticity change your font to a distressed serif font! This is not an f for an s. If you look, you'll find the typeface has no crossbar on the f, unless it was set by a country printer - but most printers were very literate and aware. That's just an s in an antique form and shouldn't be reprinted as an f. If you use Postscript fonts I have Fontographer and I can alter an existing (public domain) font to provide this character. I did this for my brother who was printing baroque music and wanted a suitable 'New' typeface (probably Baskerville). It converted to PC Truetype well enough apparently. David Kilpatrick NB: are you doing Friday night sessions at Yetholm now? Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] abc matters and the Calvert Collection - Kelso 1799
Philip Whittaker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: | | Maybe there is something in this abc format I thought. So I tried a few | tunes from the Calvert Collection of 1799(?). I tried all the features | that were on offer and was very pleasantly surpised. I manged to notate | just about everything I wanted. It seems to cope with most effects. ... | The collection has nothing like the importance of the Aird Collections | which it is suggested Burns used as source for many of his tunes. I am not | sure that abc is the best medium for it as some tunes have second parts | and good bass lines. There is the local interest and 200 year old version | of well kent tunes. I suspect that lots of people here would like to see the collection transcribed and online. I notice that your email address looks like the same machine, or maybe a near neighbor, of Neil Gatherer's. Maybe you should talk to him about setting up a web directory for the tunes. He could probably make a lot of useful suggestions. Some abc software does multi-part music now, though it's not very well standardised. If your program doesn't, it's no big deal. Just enter the parts as separate "tunes", with different X: numbers, and add something like "(harmony)" or "(bass)" to the T: lines. This will print in a usable form, as separate parts. Transforming it into abc that uses the V: lines would then be quite easy. Some more 18th-century music collections online would be interesting to a lot of us. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] abc matters and the Calvert Collection - Kelso 1799
Why not transcribe the whole of the Calvert Collection? [...] there are bass parts for almost all the tunes. Many are fairly pedestrian but some have been well written, by Calvert himself I would guess. Also several tunes have a second violin part. There are double stoppings, trills and ties in many of the tunes. These latter features are what would make the collection interesting to transcribe. ABC is now mature enough to represent such things, so it is now possible to do the job right. There's no point in doing a transcription that somebody will have to redo in a few years' time. There is a minor problem with multiple voices. These are not quite standardized. However, the divergences are small enough that minor editing by the user can resolve them. If you make your source accurate and readable, variations in syntax are a side-issue. I use Barfly and do things that way, but I'd rather deal with an accurately transcribed tune using the abc2ps conventions than a rush job in the form I'm used to. One caveat: doing bass lines absolutely demands that you proofread (and maybe proofhear) with a computer. You will *inevitably* get octave-out errors with almost every tune. The McKay tunes on my site are an example of simple bass lines of the sort you're talking about. (BTW, I have never had any feedback on these; I thought they had good potential as present-day session tunes, but if anybody's introducing them for that they haven't told me). It is also interesteing to see; The Fall of Paris and the Sea Captains - tunes that appear in O'Neills in very similar versions. Fall of Paris is "Ca Ira", the anthem of the French Revolution. It was a great hit in the late 18th century. It was what the eternally stroppy Lord George Gordon asked to have played to him as he was dying in jail. So, the question is; is anyone interested in this collection enough to help me out with the abc work? Otherwise I do not think it will ever get done. If you are prepared to do say ten tunes, I'll send you a photocopy of the book. You can then email me the section of the abc file. I'll then splice the offerings together and offer it to the usual sites. What I would be prepared to do is final proofreading. There's a copy of this collection in the NLS so I wouldn't need photocopies. I have stuck to Calvert's spelling of the titles including the "f" for "s". That's not an f, it's a long s. My take on this transcription: X: 8 T:Trip to Kelfo M:6/8 L:1/8 R:jig B:Thomas Calvert Collection - Page 4 K:A E| ABA c2 A| e2 A c2 A| BcB d2B| f2 Bd cB | ABA c2 A| e2 A c2 A| fga e2 d| cd B A2 | | e| aga g2 e| fdf ecA | ABA aga | Acd efg | aga g2 e| fdf ecA fga e2 d| cd B A2 e| aga g2 e| fdf ecA | ABA aga | Acd efg | aga geg | fdf ecA | fga e2 d| cd B A2 || 1. A layout that reflects the structure makes it easier to see where things are repeated and where there are deliberate variations. 2. The two separated barlines at the end of the first part are both incorrect ABC and are wrong semantically - this must be a repeat (or a very strange tune). Try to figure out what Calvert's repeat conventions are. 3. Bar 4 will be beamed as if it's 3/4 by most ABC software. Same goes for the last bar of the piece. Surely Calvert didn't print it that way? 4. You have no barline between bars 6 and 7 in the second part. 5. You need to identify yourself as the transcriber so you can get corrections, fan mail etc. 6. Unless the source says the tune is a jig, don't use the R: field to say so. Put editorial guesses like that in N: fields. (In this case it could hardly be anything else, but there are tougher cases like tunes in 6/8 which the original editor called reels). 7. The references to O'Neill are out of place. It isn't any sort of bible for Scottish music - maybe references to Kerr or to Charlie's index would make sense, but otherwise I'd restrict the bibliographic stuff to talk about earlier versions rather than later ones. 8. Some of the above problems are due to the software you're using - abc2win is pretty bad at error checking. Get something more modern to test your transcriptions with. (I don't use Windows, but I think Muse may be the best bet here - its typesetting may be nothing to write home about, but its author is actively developing it and tracking changes in the ABC spec very quickly). This is the way I'd do it. I haven't changed any of your pitches or time values, though. I could play off this without typesetting it; your original layout would make that difficult. X:9 T:Trip to Kelso M:6/8 L:1/8 B:Thomas Calvert Collection - Page 4 Z:Philip Whittaker 2001 K:A E|ABA c2A|e2A c2A|BcB d2B|f2B dcB|\ ABA c2A|e2A c2A|fga e2d|cdB A2:| e|aga g2e|fdf ecA|ABA aga|Acd efg|\ aga g2e|fdf ecA|fga e2d|cdB A2e| aga g2e|fdf ecA|ABA aga|Acd efg|\ aga geg|fdf ecA|fga e2d|cdB A2|] === http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/
