donn said:
Wouldn’t a Chord Grid be the way to go? It’s pretty much a standard tool, and then you can save the “/“ for its usual use, to describe a slash, over chord, or chord inversion.
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ABC notation... bass ?
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Wouldn’t a Chord Grid be the way to go? It’s pretty much a standard tool, and then you can save the “/“ for its usual use, to describe a slash, over chord, or chord inversion.
Well I haven't had a chance to sit at the accordion with this music but my guess, being it is some form of Scottish dance and played fairly fast, is that the bass rhythm for most bars is:
Bass(root) - chord - bass(counter or 5th above) - chord.
The bass falls on the first and 4th note of the 6/8 and the chords on the 3rd and 8th notes.
I'll need to sit at my accordion to work out some harmonies.
Looks like a jolly tune.
Bass(root) - chord - bass(counter or 5th above) - chord.
The bass falls on the first and 4th note of the 6/8 and the chords on the 3rd and 8th notes.
I'll need to sit at my accordion to work out some harmonies.
Looks like a jolly tune.
donn
Prolific poster
BobM said:
Maybe - like I say, not absolutely sure where dunlustin wanted to go with that, maybe thats what it would take. I cant recall that Ive never seen it before.
And further responding to the notion of whats standard -- Im not making this up! if I may resort to wikipedia, from Chord names and symbols (popular music)
wikipedia said:
BobM said:
Maybe - like I say, not absolutely sure where dunlustin wanted to go with that, maybe thats what it would take. I cant recall that Ive never seen it before.
And further responding to the notion of whats standard -- Im not making this up! if I may resort to wikipedia, from Chord names and symbols (popular music)
[/quote]wikipedia said:
I read chord charts every working night, and in my job the /“ mark always means an “over” chord. (eg C7/E). The chords timing is defined by its place in the bar, which can get a little crowded in more complex pieces. It’s not to say that other systems don’t exist, but there is now a standard way of expressing chord charts, check out some fake books for examples. It may be that rock guitarists have a different system...
If you use the “/“ to split the bar, how would you write in chords something like, G D7/A G/B C C/D D7/F# G. ?
It’s got to be better to use learn standard systems and terms, why keep on re-inventing the wheel?
BobM.
<HIGHLIGHT highlight="#ffbf00">[highlight=#ffbf00]It’s got to be better to use learn standard systems and terms, why keep on re-inventing the wheel?
BobM.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>
Why Bob ?....It's what I do whatever instrument I pick up and murder !! :lol:
BobM.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>
Why Bob ?....It's what I do whatever instrument I pick up and murder !! :lol:
[highlight=#ffbf00]It’s got to be better to use learn standard systems and terms, why keep on re-inventing the wheel?
BobM.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>
Why Bob ?....Its what I do whatever instrument I pick up and murder !! :lol:[/quote]
,,,,and it’s all part of your charm!!
BobM.
BobM.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>
Why Bob ?....Its what I do whatever instrument I pick up and murder !! :lol:[/quote]
,,,,and it’s all part of your charm!!
BobM.
donn
Prolific poster
Sorry, Im not following, and cant explain without picking this apart somewhat ...
Why are we splitting a bar?
Im sure missing something, because I dont see how the answer could be anything but G D7/A G/B C C/D D7/F# G.?
No ones re-inventing the wheel. I was hoping youd see this in the wikipedia excerpt, which goes on to mention the resemblance to the percent sign (really not that exactly but somewhat like it), which denotes a measure to be repeated from the preceding measure. Of course we could use % here, following that precedent, but really it would be re-inventing the wheel -- since the use of / to repeat a chord is an established standard.
BobM said:
Why are we splitting a bar?
Im sure missing something, because I dont see how the answer could be anything but G D7/A G/B C C/D D7/F# G.?
No ones re-inventing the wheel. I was hoping youd see this in the wikipedia excerpt, which goes on to mention the resemblance to the percent sign (really not that exactly but somewhat like it), which denotes a measure to be repeated from the preceding measure. Of course we could use % here, following that precedent, but really it would be re-inventing the wheel -- since the use of / to repeat a chord is an established standard.
I hope you know George will eventually come along and chastise me for not posting this in Folk...
But thanks for all the input so far.. and its caught fire a bit hasn it?
Anyway for your further consideration I found an example of said piece played (not me, I wish...) which may help? Complicated by the fact that its part of a medley....
But thanks for all the input so far.. and its caught fire a bit hasn it?
Anyway for your further consideration I found an example of said piece played (not me, I wish...) which may help? Complicated by the fact that its part of a medley....
donn
Prolific poster
Well, of course this is outright cheating, but ... sounds to me like
A E A E A / E /
A E A A D E A /
etc.
The counter bass A (C#) makes a run that pulls hard for the final resolve chord. One could alternatively use C#m.
Check me on this, though - get your own take on it first. I may be hearing it how I think it goes, instead of how he's doing it. I know when I play it, it comes out a little more lugubrious than it should be, but that may be due to something other than the chords.
A E A E A / E /
A E A A D E A /
etc.
The counter bass A (C#) makes a run that pulls hard for the final resolve chord. One could alternatively use C#m.
Check me on this, though - get your own take on it first. I may be hearing it how I think it goes, instead of how he's doing it. I know when I play it, it comes out a little more lugubrious than it should be, but that may be due to something other than the chords.
This thread appears to be in a confused state as to what question is being asked.
There appear to be 2 intermingled questions, namely
1. What bass chords and rhythm do I play when I only have the notation for the melody?
2. What notation is best suited for defining the bass notes to play?
what question are we answering at the moment, or have I missed the plank completely?
There appear to be 2 intermingled questions, namely
1. What bass chords and rhythm do I play when I only have the notation for the melody?
2. What notation is best suited for defining the bass notes to play?
what question are we answering at the moment, or have I missed the plank completely?
Well I did say it wasn't clear.
I agree chord charts are often the answer.
What I was trying to do by spacing was give a visual representation of what 6/8 might "sound" like - I do realise I failed.
My point is that each bar is (usually/often) two lots of oom pah, the oom is longer than the pah hence ooom and pa' and that the pa' is more "attached" to the next ooom then the one before it, so pa' ooom
When I was starting out I was inclined to see the bar line as a sort of break/pause which it isn't
As to the notes, I was suggesting that the OP might like to not use chords for a change but just bass notes instead - hence g d and not G D
This was meant as a less conventional option, instead of for example playing a D chord against a G arpeggio in Bar 1, a G chord against a d note in bar 2 and a D chord against a c note in the same bar although that's a D7 so makes sense.
It was a better idea to describe where the bass/chords fall rather than show it as a diagram.
Is there ever any controversy over harmonising fiddle/pipe tunes for Scottish music? I'm sure I read that conservative followers of Irish Trad Music don't like harmonising beyond the odd drone.
The wider point I tried to hint at is that"harmonise" means sounds nice - given the ABC tells you the notes, it also tells you the chords and using notes from the chords is harmonising put simply.
I agree chord charts are often the answer.
What I was trying to do by spacing was give a visual representation of what 6/8 might "sound" like - I do realise I failed.
My point is that each bar is (usually/often) two lots of oom pah, the oom is longer than the pah hence ooom and pa' and that the pa' is more "attached" to the next ooom then the one before it, so pa' ooom
When I was starting out I was inclined to see the bar line as a sort of break/pause which it isn't
As to the notes, I was suggesting that the OP might like to not use chords for a change but just bass notes instead - hence g d and not G D
This was meant as a less conventional option, instead of for example playing a D chord against a G arpeggio in Bar 1, a G chord against a d note in bar 2 and a D chord against a c note in the same bar although that's a D7 so makes sense.
It was a better idea to describe where the bass/chords fall rather than show it as a diagram.
Is there ever any controversy over harmonising fiddle/pipe tunes for Scottish music? I'm sure I read that conservative followers of Irish Trad Music don't like harmonising beyond the odd drone.
The wider point I tried to hint at is that"harmonise" means sounds nice - given the ABC tells you the notes, it also tells you the chords and using notes from the chords is harmonising put simply.
donn said:
There is a type of “/“ marking to denote beats/repeats of a chord, but it’s thicker and doesn’t sit under the chord. I should have put the the chord extract inside of the grid that I uploaded, it would have been clearer. To indicate the placement within a bar, for example a chord of 3 beats would sit at the beginning of the bar and the chord on the last beat would sit at the far right hand side. So, no need for any /, and it frees you up to play nice inversions..
BobM.
donn
Prolific poster
Of course, youre welcome to actually post your own notion of the chords to this tune, as dunlustin and have been endeavoring to do, in whatever fashion suits you. I hate to further belabor this side-track, as its surely of little interest to anyone but ourselves, but of course as usual I just cant let it go - I am not making this up. Continuing with the wikipedia vein, heres an excerpt from another article Chord chart, where in discussion of the Nashville system, they use the ordinary standard notation Ive been using, without prior explanation under the obvious assumption that it would be familiar to any reader:
As for inversions - as explained in the earlier wikipedia account of this system on the previous page, the metric / is separated from note names by spaces, so you can continue to write inversions as you have been doing, without risk of confusion.
Not that I expect you to use this notation. You apparently have the means to construct these PDF grids of the required dimensions, and the motivation to use them, and I look forward to some extent to seeing some actual charts.
wikipedia said:
As for inversions - as explained in the earlier wikipedia account of this system on the previous page, the metric / is separated from note names by spaces, so you can continue to write inversions as you have been doing, without risk of confusion.
Not that I expect you to use this notation. You apparently have the means to construct these PDF grids of the required dimensions, and the motivation to use them, and I look forward to some extent to seeing some actual charts.
donn
Prolific poster
dunlustin said:
Well, perhaps theres the option of presenting the notes in conventional musical notation (dots), with the chords written overhead at the exact moment theyre to be played. It might be easier than you think. I got the dots that I posted on page 1 from an on-line ABC conversion; on MacOS, Preview will convert back and forth between JPG and PDF images, and in PDF it supports annotation.
Or, you could stuff them directly into the ABC format! Like so:
X: 3
T: Kenmures Up And Awa (amongst other titles for the same or (30+!) similar pieces - which itself would probably go some way to answer my question on this one...)
R: jig
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
GGBd DgdB | Gded Dd2 c | G~B3 BAG | DFAA AFD |
GGBd DgdB | Gdef G/Bg2 f | Cedc BcA | BGG G2 : |
Gg2 d DedB | Gded Ddef | Gg2 d edB | DABA ABd |
Gg2 d DedB | Gdef G/Bg2 f | Cedc DBcA | GBGF G2 : |
... which translates at http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html to
<ATTACHMENT filename=51e6a9196b0cd.jpg index=0>
Attachments
donn said:
This is not a brilliant example (intro from A Whiter Shade of Pale”) having been constructed in Band in a Box, but anyway...
BobM
And this classic from letter A...
I've just re-read the lot and noticed this from Soulsaver:
"I know enough theory to add bass to compliment the melody and time signature"
and
"Is that up to me to decide?"
To which the answer is surely Yes. All the rest is personal taste although if it's folky stuff then less is more generally.
The solutions offered for notation do not address the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 or even the type of music: a waltz would almost certainly have a different accompaniment to a bourree (3/8).
Do we assume it's obvious to anyone seeing the ABC for the first time because it's not unusual to see a 4/4 bass line as 1 1/2 + 1 1/2 + 1 (Is that a rhumba?)
What I'm trying to say is if the L-hand is the rhythm section, a chord chart tells you very little. A bass player uses hs experience, the rest of us might well struggle.
"I know enough theory to add bass to compliment the melody and time signature"
and
"Is that up to me to decide?"
To which the answer is surely Yes. All the rest is personal taste although if it's folky stuff then less is more generally.
The solutions offered for notation do not address the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 or even the type of music: a waltz would almost certainly have a different accompaniment to a bourree (3/8).
Do we assume it's obvious to anyone seeing the ABC for the first time because it's not unusual to see a 4/4 bass line as 1 1/2 + 1 1/2 + 1 (Is that a rhumba?)
What I'm trying to say is if the L-hand is the rhythm section, a chord chart tells you very little. A bass player uses hs experience, the rest of us might well struggle.
donn
Prolific poster
Glenn said:
It has gotten a bit murky in here, thats for sure.
The question in principle, and I think the interesting one in principle, was more or less the first. But Ive been concentrating on the bass notes and leaving the rhythm for another day, as I think to a certain level the rhythm is more or less obvious, and past that theres nothing to be done but consult an authoritative source. For an ABC melody, if its meant to be 6/8, youll know, and with some natural assumptions youll know what to do with it.
On the notes, there have been two somewhat conflicting propositions:
- yes, you can use some principles to construct a bass part
- no - you can come up with various entertaining alternative bass parts, but theres no reliable way to get the one you want, without some extra information -- ideally, the chords for the tune presented somewhere else, or at least a thorough acquaintance with the genre.
Then we took up a specific tune and tried our hands at guessing a bass part. Or we tried to, but ran into trouble communicating our ideas about this, hence the notation discussion. That has by now drifted so far from the point that hopefully it will recede into some invisible dimension.
We didnt really get a very broad sample of ideas about the example tune. In particular, apparently nothing generated by principle, either manually or using something like Finale. My own results were ambiguous - I have played a fair amount of traditional music of the British Isles, and I got fairly close to our authoritative reference, to my ear anyway; but I havent played Scottish music at all, nor did I nail it - differed from the authoritative version on a few chords, enough that I think my attempt would be regarded as erroneous by anyone who cared. Make of that what you will. For me, it confirms my suspicion that given a chordless melody, it behooves you to look for some credible source for the chords. On the other hand, if theres nothing to be done about it and you have no reason to care about correctness ... it might be possible, as Jim D mentioned, to describe some principles that would get you something musically valid.
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