Re: Solfa (Was: [abcusers] a very peculiar use of word alignment
[solfa] I'll try to locate a copy of the John Curwen reference through Inter-Library Loan. The local library does not have it, but it should be obtainable, now that I know exactly what to look for. You are quite likely to find one second-hand someday. I got an extra copy a year or so ago (for only 50p) and passed it on to somebody on the Scots-L list. They can fetch silly prices on EBay but there shouldn't be any need to use that. The local library does have a copy of the 20-volume version of New Grove Dictionary of Music; I'll check it tomorrow and see what it has to offer. It gives a comparative description of textual musical notations but doesn't have a full tutorial on any one of them. Probably not what you want. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. -- off-list mail to j-c rather than abc at this site, please -- To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Solfa (Was: [abcusers] a very peculiar use of word alignment
My apologies for being just a bit off topic, but I think I sense some potential help at hand here on my next upcoming project. At 04:48 AM 7/23/2003, Jack Campin wrote: Just for laughs, I tried to see if I could do parallel solfa lines in BarFly using the w: construct, with the solfa symbols being treated as words. The problem with it was that in solfa, the :, . and , characters are used as barlines and beat separators; they align between notes. So I tried to align them to y non-printing spaces. I couldn't get it to work right, but I cannot figure out if it should have worked at all, if I needed a different syntax to do it than the one I was using, or if the failure was a bug. Can it be done? (I did figure out that I needed to escape the - signs, used in solfa to add duration to the previous note). I haven't figured out what on earth to use for a lower-octave sign: solfa uses a sort of kerned subscripted apostrophe, easily distinguishable from the fat comma used for marking quarter- or eighth-beats. There's nothing in the standard Mac character set that looks like it so I can't even do high-bit cheating. I have recently come by a small book Songs of the Gael, by A. P. Breathnach, 1922. This book appears to use precisely the notation system described by Jack. I am about ready to transcribe the music to a familiar (to me) form of notation. I have searched the Internet for some reference on this system of notation, but have thus far had no luck in finding *anything* that defines usage of the various characters and marks. The letter characters obviously represent the solfege notes, but the meaning of the other characters is not so clear. Can you, Jack, or anyone, point me to a reference, either printed or online, that defines this notation system? I would appreciate any help, as some published guideline would sure help shorten the learning curve. Regards, Don To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: Solfa (Was: [abcusers] a very peculiar use of word alignment
I have recently come by a small book Songs of the Gael, by A. P. Breathnach, 1922. It's still widely used by Gaelic singers. This book appears to use precisely the notation system described by Jack. I am about ready to transcribe the music to a familiar (to me) form of notation. I have searched the Internet for some reference on this system of notation, but have thus far had no luck in finding *anything* that defines usage of the various characters and marks. The letter characters obviously represent the solfege notes, but the meaning of the other characters is not so clear. Can you, Jack, or anyone, point me to a reference, either printed or online, that defines this notation system? The standard reference is John Curwen, Standard Course on the Tonic Sol-Fa Method, reprinted in umpteen editions from 1858 onwards (I have the 1901 edition). It goes far beyond simply being a notation manual; it's a complete course in the theory and practice of music. The example I was trying to do was the one in the New Grove Notation article, from the hymnbook of a syncretistic Nigerian church of the 1950s with a familiar Protestant hymn set to the most bizarre-looking text ever seen outside a Gnostic incantation. It wouldn't be hard to generate it from ABC but you would need to find the right fonts from somewhere. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. -- off-list mail to j-c rather than abc at this site, please -- To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: Solfa (Was: [abcusers] a very peculiar use of word alignment
Thank you Jack, I'll try to locate a copy of the John Curwen reference through Inter-Library Loan. The local library does not have it, but it should be obtainable, now that I know exactly what to look for. The local library does have a copy of the 20-volume version of New Grove Dictionary of Music; I'll check it tomorrow and see what it has to offer. Regards, Don At 07:00 PM 7/23/2003, Jack Campin wrote: I have recently come by a small book Songs of the Gael, by A. P. Breathnach, 1922. It's still widely used by Gaelic singers. This book appears to use precisely the notation system described by Jack. I am about ready to transcribe the music to a familiar (to me) form of notation. I have searched the Internet for some reference on this system of notation, but have thus far had no luck in finding *anything* that defines usage of the various characters and marks. The letter characters obviously represent the solfege notes, but the meaning of the other characters is not so clear. Can you, Jack, or anyone, point me to a reference, either printed or online, that defines this notation system? The standard reference is John Curwen, Standard Course on the Tonic Sol-Fa Method, reprinted in umpteen editions from 1858 onwards (I have the 1901 edition). It goes far beyond simply being a notation manual; it's a complete course in the theory and practice of music. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
