Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[John Chambers]

Jack Campin wrote:
| >  ...  We have problems with inconsistent abc, but  abc  is  a
| > paragon of standardization in comparison with tonic sol fa.
|
| That's not true of the notation as used in the UK.  It all derives from
| one source, Curwen's original texts, and uses it with no variation
| whatever that I've noticed.  Much more standardized than either ABC or
| staff notation.  It's still the most commonly used notation for Gaelic
| singers.

Does anyone have the URL for a spec (or user's guide or whatever)? My
search didn't turn up one. Close, in the form of some online teaching
docs, but digging the details of the notation out of those would be a
lot  of work.  It looks like a fairly short doc oughta handle most of
the notation.

| The way I write ABC (with the beats aligned vertically in parallel
| phrases or parallel simultaneous voices) is motivated by the same
| sort of readability concerns as sol-fa layout; horizontal space
| represents elapsed time (mostly).  I don't find sol-fa any easier
| to read than ABC if both are laid out with equal care.  But I don't
| expect to persuade the Mod of that.

I do a lot of the same sort of aligning.  Reading "garbage" abc  that
is all scrunched up is really annoying.  Of course, a lot of it comes
about because people are using GUI tools, and they're  not  aware  of
how bad their abc is.  Sorta like all the "garbage" html that you see
these days.

But then, I'm one of the crowd that reads abc itself, and I  like  it
to  be  readable.   I'd  expect  most instrumentalists would find abc
somewhat more readable, since  sol-fa  requires  the  extra  step  of
mapping  from  scale-relative notes to absolute notes.  I've played a
chromatic accordion for a couple of decades, so  I'm  used  to  doing
this translation (though usually in the other direction). I also have
a collection of pennywhistles of different sizes, and they  encourage
you to internalize the same sort of relative->absolute pitch mapping.

I wonder how many instrumentalists would find tonic sol-fa easier  to
read than abc? Assuming well-formatted text in both cases, of course.
But this is probably not terribly significant, since TSF  is  clearly
aimed primarily at singers.

BTW, in the few TSF songs I found online, I noticed that the  use  of
apostrophes  and commas to indicate octave is essentially the same as
in ABC. I'd guess that this isn't coincidence, and that Chris Walshaw
is familiar with TSF.  OTOH, it's a fairly obvious visual metaphor.

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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[John Chambers]

Jack Campin wrote:
| >  ...  We have problems with inconsistent abc, but  abc  is  a
| > paragon of standardization in comparison with tonic sol fa.
|
| That's not true of the notation as used in the UK.  It all derives from
| one source, Curwen's original texts, and uses it with no variation
| whatever that I've noticed.  Much more standardized than either ABC or
| staff notation.  It's still the most commonly used notation for Gaelic
| singers.

Does anyone have the URL for a spec (or user's guide or whatever)? My
search didn't turn up one. Close, in the form of some online teaching
docs, but digging the details of the notation out of those would be a
lot  of work.  It looks like a fairly short doc oughta handle most of
the notation.

| The way I write ABC (with the beats aligned vertically in parallel
| phrases or parallel simultaneous voices) is motivated by the same
| sort of readability concerns as sol-fa layout; horizontal space
| represents elapsed time (mostly).  I don't find sol-fa any easier
| to read than ABC if both are laid out with equal care.  But I don't
| expect to persuade the Mod of that.

I do a lot of the same sort of aligning.  Reading "garbage" abc  that
is all scrunched up is really annoying.  Of course, a lot of it comes
about because people are using GUI tools, and they're  not  aware  of
how bad their abc is.  Sorta like all the "garbage" html that you see
these days.

But then, I'm one of the crowd that reads abc itself, and I  like  it
to  be  readable.   I'd  expect  most instrumentalists would find abc
somewhat more readable, since  sol-fa  requires  the  extra  step  of
mapping  from  scale-relative notes to absolute notes.  I've played a
chromatic accordion for a couple of decades, so  I'm  used  to  doing
this translation (though usually in the other direction). I also have
a collection of pennywhistles of different sizes, and they  encourage
you to internalize the same sort of relative->absolute pitch mapping.

I wonder how many instrumentalists would find tonic sol-fa easier  to
read than abc? Assuming well-formatted text in both cases, of course.
But this is probably not terribly significant, since TSF  is  clearly
aimed primarily at singers.

BTW, in the few TSF songs I found online, I noticed that the  use  of
apostrophes  and commas to indicate octave is essentially the same as
in ABC. I'd guess that this isn't coincidence, and that Chris Walshaw
is familiar with TSF.  OTOH, it's a fairly obvious visual metaphor.

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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[Jack Campin]

> I've googled "Tonic Sol Fa" and looked at a number of the sites  that
> aren't  about  the shlocky group by that name.  I'd say that it isn't
> ready for prime time on the Web.  True, a lot of people  seem  to  be
> familiar  with  it.  But of the songs that I found (and there weren't
> many), there was very little consistency in  the  notation,  and  one
> would  have  to  put  out a huge effort to write code that could make
> sense of it.  We have problems with inconsistent abc, but  abc  is  a
> paragon of standardization in comparison with tonic sol fa.

That's not true of the notation as used in the UK.  It all derives from
one source, Curwen's original texts, and uses it with no variation
whatever that I've noticed.  Much more standardized than either ABC or
staff notation.  It's still the most commonly used notation for Gaelic
singers.

I don't think trying to parse it makes much sense - it would have to be
OCR'd, as I doubt any two typesetters represent it the same way on a
computer or even keep their transcriptions on file.  But generating it
is a whole lot easier, and there would be a market for the result.

The way I write ABC (with the beats aligned vertically in parallel
phrases or parallel simultaneous voices) is motivated by the same
sort of readability concerns as sol-fa layout; horizontal space
represents elapsed time (mostly).  I don't find sol-fa any easier
to read than ABC if both are laid out with equal care.  But I don't
expect to persuade the Mod of that.

I just came across another kind of sol-fa yesterday, in a Belgian
songbook from the 1940s.  Notes designated by numbers.  I've no idea
if anyone still uses that.

===  ===


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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[John Chambers]

Nigel wrote:
> It was the precursor of ABC notation in the days long before personal
> computers and the internet. Simple, could be written using a
> typewriter, able to handle accidentals, upper and lower octaves,
> rhythm. I believe Gavin Greig used it in his collecting folk song in
> the North East of Scotland. Sam Henry did the same in Northern Ireland.
> Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains still uses it, I believe.

I've googled "Tonic Sol Fa" and looked at a number of the sites  that
aren't  about  the shlocky group by that name.  I'd say that it isn't
ready for prime time on the Web.  True, a lot of people  seem  to  be
familiar  with  it.  But of the songs that I found (and there weren't
many), there was very little consistency in  the  notation,  and  one
would  have  to  put  out a huge effort to write code that could make
sense of it.  We have problems with inconsistent abc, but  abc  is  a
paragon of standardization in comparison with tonic sol fa.

If people were interested in making it a useful  Web  notation,  we'd
want  to  try  to  foist  a  standard  syntax on its users to make it
tractable to software.  This might be easy or difficult, depending on
how  the established user community reacts.

Probably the best way to do it would be to  form  a  small  cabal  to
develop some useful software in stealth mode, together with a few web
sites with a lot of the music that the users will want  to  download.
If  the  online  tunes  and software are useful to the users, they'll
probably jump on the bandwagon.

Given that much of the existing user community  consists  of  schools
and  community  choral groups, the best idea might be to develop some
java (or javascript) tools to download, play,  and  edit  TSF  files.
This would make it useful no matter what sort of computer they're on.
Provide songs from common songbooks  for  downloading,  and  it  just
might take off.


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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[Derek Hoy]

Nigel wrote:
> It was the precursor of ABC notation in the days long before personal
> computers and the internet. Simple, could be written using a
> typewriter, able to handle accidentals, upper and lower octaves,
> rhythm. I believe Gavin Greig used it in his collecting folk song in
> the North East of Scotland. Sam Henry did the same in Northern Ireland.
> Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains still uses it, I believe.

And Julie Andrews is probably the best known exponent.  Although, I expect 
Maloney will take the credit for that too.

Actually, Julie may have based her 'Doh, a deer...' on an old North-East 
song which began,

'Dough, a mix, for making bread
Ray, that's me, my name is Ray,
Me, I'm Ray, I'm Ray that's me'
and so on.

Derek
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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[John Chambers]

| Bruce Olson writes:
| There's lots of tunes and information on tonic sol-fa on the internet.
| Use google to search on 'tonic sol fa'.

Sure 'nuf.  Of course, 2/3 of the matches are for the pop group  that
uses  that name.  Can't say that they're my favorite band.  Anyhow, I
looked around, and found numerous explanations  and  history  of  the
notation.   I  didn't  find  very many songs.  I wonder if there's an
efficient way to dig the actual songs out of all the chaff?

I recently wrote a perl script that queries  google  for  the  phrase
"abc  tunes",  and  I  found about 20 new abc sites in the first 1000
matches.  Plus the 180 or so that I already had in my  list.   That's
about  a  20%  success  rate.  Maybe I oughta add a bit of code to my
search bot that matches tonic sol fa notation, and see what it  turns
up.   One  problem  I  see is that the title is given in all sorts of
idiosyncratic ways; there's nothing like abc's T: to clearly identify
the  title.   So  finding tsf tunes on the web could turn out to be a
difficult project.

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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[Bruce Olson]

Nigel Gatherer wrote:
> 
> John Chambers wrote:
> 
> > Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland writes:
> > | My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose
> > | (also called "Low Down In the Broom")
> >  I guess there's an official spec, but I don't know
>>
>
> where to access it (Jack - do you know?), and there are at least a
> couple of biological computers which can translate to/from ABC, one of
> them resting on my shoulders. I hope that answers your questions.
> 
> --
> Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/
> 


There's lots of tunes and information on tonic sol-fa on the internet. 
Use google to search on 'tonic sol fa'.

Bruce Olson
-- 
Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes, 
broadside ballads at my no-spam website - www.erols.com/olsonw 
or just http://www.erols.com/olsonw";> Click 

Motto: Keep at it; muddling through always works.
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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa (was: FW: Hi from Greece...)

[John Chambers]

| > Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland writes:
| > | My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose
| > | (also called "Low Down In the Broom")
| > |
| > | s .m|d  :- .d|r :m |d'   :- .t|l :s |l :- .s |l :d'   |r' :- |
| > | d'.r',m'|d  :- .d|r :m |d'   :- .t|l :s |l :- .s |l :t|d' :- |
| > | :s  |d' :m'  |r':d'|l .d':-   |s :m |s :- .s |f':- .m'|r' :- |
| > | -   :s' |m' :s'  |m':d'|l:d'  |s :m |s :- .s |l :t|d' :- ||
|
| Yes, I thought of this notation one night as I sipped a gin and tonic,
| so I thought I'd call it Tonic sol-fa (lies, lies).
|
| I have no recollection of learning sol-fa at school, but it's obvious
| that I did, because it is ingrained; I can "hear" a piece of sol-fa, I
| can sing sol-fa correctly, and with a very small effort can write it
| fairly well. And I'm sure that many other people can as well, which
| brings me to suspect that it may be more valuable than ABC. Very few
| people learn to read ABC because it translates so easy to sound or
| standard notation. Sol-fa has no such translators, making it necessary
| to sing it, thus shortening the internalization of the melody, and
| strengthening its relationship to the physical body. I also think that
| more people would understand it than would understand (or even have
| heard of) ABC - in this case I reasoned that it was more likely that a
| Greek woman would be able to "hear" the sol-fa than the ABC.
|
| Don't get me wrong - I love ABC, and use it a lot, but I'm beginning to
| think that sol-fa is more valuable from a learning point of view. What
| do you think?

Well, I didn't really learn this when I was little, but it does  seem
straightforward.   I  wonder if we could actually do something useful
and computerish with it. The meaning of the letters is quite obvious.
The rhythic symbols are a bit puzzling. What do all those punctuation
characters really mean? I likely know a slightly different version of
the  tune, so the rhythms that I hear don't map in any obvious way to
the funny characters.

My first guess is that the colon is a beat separator, '-' is  a  tie,
and dot and comma mean "short".  But I could be misinterpreting them.

An obvious way to make this useful would be to write  translators  to
and  from  abc.   And we might want to keep it even simpler than abc,
thus losing some of abc's gimmicks.  It also looks  like  a  notation
intended for singing, so we'd want a simple notation for the lyrics.

Didn't someone recently do (or at least think publicly about) a  tool
to  translate  between abc and the French scale notation?  This looks
like a very similar notation, except using the  English  scale  names
(which by some coincidence all start with different letters).


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Re: [scots-l] Tonic Sol-Fa

[Irene Shelton]

> I have no recollection of learning sol-fa at school, but it's obvious
> that I did, because it is ingrained; I can "hear" a piece of sol-fa, I
> can sing sol-fa correctly, and with a very small effort can write it
> fairly well. And I'm sure that many other people can as well .. What
> do you think?

Agreed - I 'heard' this piece the minute I looked at it without even
thinking about it or why it was so easy .. interesting point raised. I
didn't realize how 'ingrained' this technique was, either - this is how we
learned all of our music in the small, one-room rural schools of Ontario
Can. (yes - they existed well into the 1970s!!) The music teachers who
travelled from school to school were experts at this technique, and could
conduct up to 4 part harmony pieces using the 'hand signals' for this
method.
I like the ABC's for their simplicity - but I have to 'translate' them
first - your Tonic was surprisingly automatic. Maybe I DID learn something
in school, after all . ;-) .. thanks for the memories!


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