MalcolmSchonfield's board-to-board with Andrew

Martin, I sent a reply to your email address. Hopefully it got through, but if not please let me know.

Hello again, Regarding my point 1. below, I just made a further little edit to the Fidel Martin PaddyOn The Turnpike transcription.

Hi Andrew, Sorry I didn't get round to answering sooner. I hope you're well. There are several points to address so I'll try to be a bit organised and group things so as to try not to forget anything. // // 1. Paddy on the Turnpike. I see you already put in my changes to the transcription. I like your proposal for the Z field; I've just now updated it that way along with a few other minor tweaks (the double "G2 Bd" fragment that I mentioned below; added a coda, ...). // 2. I broadly agree with you about the pros and cons of notational complexity. But I think there are other resources with simple scores, and I don't think it's a problem if the transcriber feels like writing a more complex or involved version. I'm glad you approve anyway about my changes to the bar structure. // 3. My preference for writing reels with quarter notes instead of half notes is probably a bit quirky, but I don't think it's a problem either really. I think this choice is defensible, despite its quirkiness. // 4. Email - my email is [firstname]_[surname] at yahoo.fr . I'd be happy for you to write to me there. // 5. Track listing for the recording - I noticed recently there is one on the UGA Bron media archives web page (bmac.libs.uga.edu), even though it doesn't give the timings, it's still better than nothing. // 6. Did you get around to looking at my version of the Fidel Martin recording of St Anne's reel? I put it on tunearch a few days ago. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on it. In particular, after a little more careful listening, my opinion is now that FM was playing a fiddle tuned one whole note down from the standard tuning. So I think it would be best for our Paddy On The Turnpike transcription to be shifted down a whole tone, along with a note about this nonstandard tuning. (As I did for my transcription of FM's St Anne's reel.) Alternately it could be left as is in G, and simply have different note about the tuning. //

Best, Malcolm

Yes, I see what you did. Thanks for improving the transcription, particularly moving the last bar and half from the first section to the 2nd. Makes much more sense. I would be in favor of adopting the changes. What would you think of a Z: line that reads "Z:transcribed by Andrew Kuntz, with improvements by Malcolm Schonfield"? Also, while your phrasing is, I agree, more accurate, I am again mindful that the transcriptions in the TTA need to be reasonably accessible to a variety of musicians with different notational skill reading levels. The bar lines I used in cut time with 2/4 measures are more simple and easier to read, notationally, though not as accurate. So, to my mind there needs to be a balance between notational complexity and accessibility, with the arbitrating factor being the subjective "does it accurately reflect what the fiddler is trying to communicate". In this case, I think your improvement remains accessible enough, though more complex than my original, and does more accurately reflect Fidel's playing. Let me know if the Z: line change meets with your approval, and I'll switch out the transcription. BTW, do you have an email address for you I could use to send some attachments?

Sorry, typo, I should have written Paddy On The Turnpike, not Paddy On The Rake, in my previous message.

I had another listen to the recording. I may want to make a few other tweaks to your score too. Maybe at some point I'll do something along the lines of what I did just now for St Anne's Reel. There is one issue in your version though that you may wish to fix yourself. In the middle of the B part you have "dBcA BGAF|G2 Bd G2 Bd". But FM only plays that "G2 Bd" fragment once. I'd write it my way, with semiquavers, like this: "[M:5/4]e(dBd) gagg dBcA BGAF G2Bd | egfa ... " Anyway. Sorry to bother you with all this. KR, Malcolm

Hi Andrew, just thought you may be interested. I took your transcription of the Fidel Martin setting of Paddy On The Rake and rearranged the meter and the bars. It didn't take very long, I only changed these two things; I made no changes to the notes. My way is how I see the phrase structure of this setting. KR, Malcolm

X:1 T:Paddy on the Turnpike [1] M:C| L:1/16 N:From an August 1, 1966, field recording of the playing of Fidel N:Martin (1891-1976) of Berlin N.H., originally from Rogersville, NB, recorded N:by folklorist Art Rosenbaum. Martin, a WWI veteran, had a repertory that N:consisted of Acadian, Irish, American and French-Canadian tunes. D: https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/331630 F:UGA Brown Media Archives: identifier artrosen_00180 (Track 3 -29:03 of the tape) Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G GE||SDGDG G=FGG BGdG eGdG|DE=FG FEFF D-=FcF dFcF| DGG=F {GF}G2GA Bdef g-fgg|[M:3/4] dBcA BcAF G2GE| [M:C|]DGDG G=FGG "*"BGdG eGdG|DE=FG FE(F/E/F) D-=FcF dFcF| DGG=F {GF}G2GA "**"Bdef g2{a}ge|[M:3/4]dBcc BdAF G2Bd | [M:C|]egfa gfgg bgdg bgdg|eaea feff afdf afdf| egfa {a}g-f(g/f/g) bgdg bgdg| e(dBd) gagg dBcA BGAF|[M:2/4] G2Bd G2Bd | egfa gfgg bgdg bgdd|eaea {fg}feff afdf afdf| egfa (g/a/g/f/)gg bgdg bgdg|[M:5/4]e(dBd) gage dBcA (B/c/A/B/)AF .Gz GES|| P:Substitution "*"BddB eBdB||"**"Bdef gf(g/f/g)||

Hi Andrew, So. I made a transcription with a few notes and added it to the entry. Happy to hear any comments you have about it. KR, Malcolm

No track listing that I was able to find at the University of Georgia site. Art Rosenbaum was an expert folk music collector, and its probable he made some kind of notes of his sessions with Fidel, though I have no idea where they might be. I'm in the process of issuing a booklet on the recordings, and have transcribed nearly all of the tunes (some 40 of them), and have matched many of them with titles as they are played elsewhere; whether or not they are the titles Fidel used or not is unknown without Rosenbaum's (suspected) notes. Certainly most of many of the tunes were not announced on tape, but there are a few instances where Rosenbaum can be heard asking for a title. My interest in Fidel is that I grew up in northern New Hampshire and my grandparents lived in the town next to his (BTW, I now live in the Hudson Valley of New York state, near Poughkeepsie). I was a young teen when Rosenbaum made his recordings, but the fact of proximity (though I had no music then, or interest) piqued my interest. My take is that Fidel was an ear-learner, skilled enough to vary slightly his tunes each time through and still keep the form and substance while playing at speed. He'd be a very good session musician today, but I think not good enough to be a regional influence. In fact, he seems to be quite isolated except for his friendship with the Reindeau (sp?) family, who were the main recording interest of Rosenbaum's (he released an album of their music). Recording Fidel was kind a side venture, though a few of Fidel's cuts made it to Rosenbaum's anthology records. Fidel also had a "squirrely" repertory gleaned from American old-time, Irish, Quebecois, "down-east" and other genres, and a few tunes from his New Brunswick roots. An odd polyglot of a repertoire. I'd love to know where he got (from whom) those tunes, and whether it was from recordings or personal contact, but I have not found any information about it. As I progress in my project I will probably be writing up a track list.

Hi, do you happen to know if there's a track listing for that half hour recording of Fidel Martin? There's a lot of good stuff in there! https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/Detail/objects/331630

I'm based in France. I added just a little info to my profile here - a link to my profile on thesession.org. https://thesession.org/members/40345

That's great, Martin. I'd welcome your interpretation of Fidel's playing. It would be a great addition to the entry. BTW, where are you based?

Hi Andrew,

Thanks very much for your speedy reply.

Let me just take the moment to say what a great resource this site is - and to thank you for your work on it.

I believe it's in C because I'm a fiddler myself and it seems to me I can hear the open strings which have slightly different timbres. It sounds like it's in C too, and I don't think it's an artefact of the recording or the tuning of the fiddle. And after another little listen I still don't think there should be those sharps. I reckon Fidel Martin, being isolated as you say, had his own ways of doing things. I really like this version because of these unusual idiosyncrasies - it's in C not D, and the "half turn" using a whole tone step at the bottom.

I have a fair few things on my list at the moment, but one of these days, perhaps in a week or two, I mean to go ahead and make the changes as you suggest. I think I prefer posting a separate ABC - I'll base it off yours though, that will give me a valuable start for things.

KR

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm, thanks very much for writing. I stand by the sharps in the transcription, as they are what I hear in the field recording. I think its typical of a "half turn" that I hear in a lot of such recordings, so I'd prefer they stay in my transcription. I'm curious as to why you think it should be in 'C' instead of 'D'. Tape speeds are sometimes not accurate, nor is fiddlers' tuning on field recordings always at standard level. "St. Anne's" is always a 'D' tune in my experience, but who knows? Fidel seems to have been a rather isolated musician and did not, I believe, read music, so he learned his tunes by ear (and there's plenty of examples in Fidel's playing of tunes that are more or less close to, but different from published music). It's possible it was in 'C', but what makes you think so? If you feel strongly about the transcription, perhaps you'd like to make the changes as an addition (leaving mine intact), either by posting an abc to the wiki page, or perhaps doing something like this: X:0 T:St. Anne's Reel M:C| L:1/8 N:From an August 1, 1966, field recording of the playing of Fidel N:Martin (1891-1976) of Berlin N.H., originally from Rogersville, NB, recorded N:by folklorist Art Rosenbaum. Martin, a WWI veteran, had a varied repertory that N:consisted of "Down East", Acadian, Irish, American and French-Canadian tunes. D: https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/index.php/Detail/objects/331630 F:UGA Brown Media Archives: identifier artrosen_00180 (Track 16 -12:04 of the tape) Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:D V:1 clef=treble name="0." [V:1] Ad|fdf-g {fg}f-edz|AFAA AFAd|BGBB BG(Bd/B/)|AAAF DFAd| Jf3f {g}fedB|AFAA AFAd|BGBB cABc|dfec (d/c/d)Ad| ff2f {g}fedB|AFAA AFAd|BGBB BG(Bd/B/)|AAAF DFAd| Jf3f {g}fedB|AAAF DFAd|BGBB cABc|dfef (d/c/d)|| ag|fdff fdfa|gggf (g/f/g)gf|eceg eceg|baa^g (a/g/a)-aa| fdfa fdfa|gggf (g/f/g)gg|eccB Aceg|(f/g/f)ec d2Ag| fdfa fdfa|gggf (g/f/g)gg|eceg eceg|baa^g a3a| fdfa fdfa|gggf (g/f/g){f}gf|ecec Acee|fdec .d2|| P: (Malcolm Schonfield transcription) [K:C]Gc|ece-f {ef}e-dcz|...(etc., you would continue with your abc version) That way both transcriptions would be available. Regards, Andrew

Hi Andrew, A couple of comments about your transcription of St Anne's reel as played by Fidel Martin. https://tunearch.org/wiki/St._Anne's_Reel Firstly I don't think the sharps in bars 20 and 28 are correct. Secondly, I think the whole thing should be one tone lower, in C, not in D. Not sure what the correct next step is - as it's a wiki I could make changes myself to your transcription but maybe you'd prefer I didn't? KR Malcolm

I see - the "plus" symbol ( 002B) isn't going through. It's sometimes replaced by either a line return or a space.

Here's a shortened URL for it: https://tinyurl.com/3zybcsvs

Hmm I see the long URL go a bit broken. Here's the bit that should go after ".html?":

lzw=BoLgBAjAUAKuCyBLAxgCwIYFMA2YDCA9tpgLboB2A5AM5gASBADgLQBSiA5lAErjXaJGYAFadwjAE4ESmcugAmmMNQAumRlADKCFBhxgA4gQllyW8ICICMJoDuAV3IcwACgBEgFg3AGrvvAprvvAdrtevgEAvEF 3n7 rgCUYABmxsrSmAA0YABGdipg5AQ56NjY6QTxYCqoSgCOdugAbpgSYIzoiBLUAHTmYFYACtjoAJ6Y8gkEdk0qiDK0BOTllWASmMjG8oiOXQBaIOgZyMwqEhTUyBKCU3Ng8IWr2CTWaHPxiDjyAKRgAEwADF8AzMwfgAOIEAdigOz2B1WjEG5w4qByeDwYAAQgBNZgAOVRXw6PxcSJUjGoIAA9OSzph0FMGqsSCQ5p1jBxyQJkLJqJhqOSMoNmORkOT8T9yfEJOTFCMOrIYlAACI6NA03BGEwUMAwRaaAQcAj4DAkRiIK7OCAATgAbAAWeVK666LBq4ymMAAQXIowA6ogioN8AMhQHAMgEYAAkudqKgwOwONR0txMDhaAAyejGcgmxg8sBJ1YSRSjcPzSM4Cijc0WgCsVvl8HA-3JNqgABlwBBycCoABpcDusAkRAADwIUHe1BsGycPw61bAPygAG1eiB3QBdKDyJwAHzAmAHAC8vmAwABRBVgPdno9o0-IUZ7g9gY-ny-XgwvgBihjvO6gz6vheV7nreYAPiBgEnm IFnp h4-ju-4riAaKbgYf77ugL5OOgu5YS J4cEoe7bi ZQcCee54WAxFgGR-40jhYA0U 2GvnRpFOIeFFUSxTgcAAhAqHR4B0gkkeuQA&format=noten&ssp=10&pdf=incipits&pn=none&fp=yes&name=Michael_Colemans_Hop-Jig&play=1

Hi Andrew,

My reference is an old recording where the rhythm, although it's swung to some extent, is quite far away from the 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 pattern that's conveyed by 9/8. Often the two notes are hardly 'swung' at all. Perhaps I should have given a link where it can be heard: https://open.spotify.com/track/01YMnj0UVyK5gMTL9Tv9wc - or I could also give a youtube link if you like.

There are parallels between Hop Jigs and Hornpipes regarding the dotted rhythms, and Hornpipes are commonly written in 4/4 or 2/4. So I do think it makes sense to write it this way. Hop jigs are less common than normal Slip Jigs. I can give another example where using 3/4 made more sense than 9/8: a transcription of the Silver Slipper I put out here: https://thesession.org/tunes/8479#setting47663

Regarding playback software. Over-reliance on software is to be avoided IMO. Here I prefer to keep the score as-is, because I feel it's the best way of transcribing the music, even if the current version of the software can't play it correctly. Actually, my score (well, a slightyl adapted version of it) can be played in a more or less rhythmically acceptable fashion by at least one online tool. Here's a link, all you have to do is open it and press play.

https://michaeleskin.com/abctools/abctools.html?lzw=BoLgBAjAUAKuCyBLAxgCwIYFMA2YDCA9tpgLboB2A5AM5gASBADgLQBSiA5lAErjXaJGYAFadwjAE4ESmcugAmmMNQAumRlADKCFBhxgA4gQllyW8ICICMJoDuAV3IcwACgBEgFg3AGrvvAprvvAdrtevgEAvEF 3n7 rgCUYABmxsrSmAA0YABGdipg5AQ56NjY6QTxYCqoSgCOdugAbpgSYIzoiBLUAHTmYFYACtjoAJ6Y8gkEdk0qiDK0BOTllWASmMjG8oiOXQBaIOgZyMwqEhTUyBKCU3Ng8IWr2CTWaHPxiDjyAKRgAEwADF8AzMwfgAOIEAdigOz2B1WjEG5w4qByeDwYAAQgBNZgAOVRXw6PxcSJUjGoIAA9OSzph0FMGqsSCQ5p1jBxyQJkLJqJhqOSMoNmORkOT8T9yfEJOTFCMOrIYlAACI6NA03BGEwUMAwRaaAQcAj4DAkRiIK7OCAATgAbAAWeVK666LBq4ymMAAQXIowA6ogioN8AMhQHAMgEYAAkudqKgwOwONR0txMDhaAAyejGcgmxg8sBJ1YSRSjcPzSM4Cijc0WgCsVvl8HA-3JNqgABlwBBycCoABpcDusAkRAADwIUHe1BsGycPw61bAPygAG1eiB3QBdKDyJwAHzAmAHAC8vmAwABRBVgPdno9o0-IUZ7g9gY-ny-XgwvgBihjvO6gz6vheV7nreYAPiBgEnm IFnp h4-ju-4riAaKbgYf77ugL5OOgu5YS J4cEoe7bi ZQcCee54WAxFgGR-40jhYA0U 2GvnRpFOIeFFUSxTgcAAhAqHR4B0gkkeuQA&format=noten&ssp=10&pdf=incipits&pn=none&fp=yes&name=Michael_Colemans_Hop-Jig&play=1

It works because the author of this tool, Micheal Eskin, has put some work into integrating 'swing' instructions with MIDI output. It's pretty powerful I think. To get it to work in this case I had to get rid of the endings of the tied notes because that seems to be incompatible with the swung MIDI output.

About making the instruction to swing the music, I'm not sure how I can make it more prominent but I'm open to suggestions.

Finally, I really do apologise for the long delay in getting back to you on your comments. As you can see it's not so simple; and I thought it would be better to go into some detail in answering, and I've been putting off answering for some time. Sorry again!

Best,

Malcolm

PS Just for the record, here on tunearch.org, I haven't so far mentioned a related topic which is that of the downbeat in the Michael Gorman recording - I can't hear it like it supposed to be. I go into some detail about that in a discussion here: https://thesession.org/tunes/409#setting47908 - my score on thession.org is like the one here on tunearch.org but the downbeat is shifted - because that's the way I hear Michael Gorman play it! (I don't hear it that way when it's recorded in a similar style by Jimmy Power at roughly the same period: https://open.spotify.com/track/35CDwfp43HfevsbBE0dWi)

Hi Malcolm. I've made an administrative move of "Michael Coleman's Hop Jig" to merge it with "Promenade (1)," as we are trying to consolidate, albeit slowly, some of our entries so as to cut down on unnecessary navigation between pages. I must say, though, on playing through your transcription, that I found it difficult to place in the context of a slip/hop jig, which is usually transcribed in 9/8 time. When the 9/8 version and your 3/4 version are played one after the other (as you can do on the "ABC Sandbox" feature of the TTA by cutting and pasting the abc's ) there is a rhythmic disconnect. However, you do indicate that the quavers are to be 'swung' and there is no way to do that on the playback software we have. If this is perhaps the issue, may I recommend that the direction to swing the music be made somehow more prominent?