Chiff and Fipple Forums

I'm no guitarist so this may annoy some of you string pluckers but it does for me. If you have the melody in ABC format you can use an ABC player to add backing chords automatically. It works pretty good with Henrik Norbeck's AbcMus player /editor which you can pick up at: http://home.swipnet.se/~w1...

There is a stack of songs with abc tunes in a file called dt-songs.abc on the web. Forget where I found it but I'm sure a search should turn it up. It's got fast and folksy (Drill ye tarries drill, etc), funny, a couple of good rude songs from the '60s English folk club scene, as well as many really...

Quoting Whitmore, "As has been said on this site many times, you have to know the tune well in your head before you can get it from the whistle." (This should be carved in a tablet of stone.) So how do you get your Irish (or Scottish) mojo? It's so simple. Download an ABC format player tha...

Good link. It's interesting how we whistlers and other traditional and folk musicans pick up a facination for history when we pick up a folksy instrument. The Celts were neighbours in Europe to the Germanic tribes. They reached Ireland about 10,000 years ago, i.e., around the same time Asian peoples...

Hi Lou, welcome to the whistling fraternity. Check out my other posts re ABC format goldmines as I'm getting repetitive. I don't read music but I gather from other posters that sheet music does not give you the feel for the music. The link I list elsewhere is the motherload. I also have a black lab,...

While what you all say is fair enough may I throw in a comment with regard to dance music - i.e., everything but slow airs. All dance music is about timing and graceful movement (different cultures and different individuals may view graceful movement in myriad ways). If I try to play or I listen to ...

Check out Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes. http://home.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc.htm#abc Get the 1600+ free Irish trad tunes, get the unrestricted shareware player /editor, slow down, transpose, shift pitch, add backing chords automatically (or rip them out). On my AWE64 soundcard and bog standard speakers...

Check out http://home.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc.htm#abc to slow down ABC tunes when learning by ear. Get the 1600+ free Irish trad tunes, get the shareware player /editor, slow down, transpose to a different key, shift pitch, add backing chords automatically. From the links: Get 'songs' for kids/learn...

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted, I'm gob-smacked, I'm amazed. We've got tone deaf musicans. We've got sheet music that doesn't tell you how a tune should sound. Now there was me thought everyone and her dog new about this ABC music format and the players available on the web. Check out http://home.swipne...

As I've written in other threads, the best thing for anyone learning by ear is to download an ABC music format player like AbcMus from http://home.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc.htm#abc Download 1600+ tunes from the same site. Links to other sites will give you all sorts of goodies - Shetland fiddle for ex...

I remember buying an 1001 Irish traditional tunes book in Dublin back in the misty past. But I don't read music and never learned a damn thing from it. To my knowledge neither did anyone that availed of my copy therafter. Still, it looked the part. The ABC music format and PC players like AbcMus (Ba...

The Barns O' Beneuches is a nice wee Scots tune. It's tiny 'cause it's a song rather than a dance. Like a lot of Irish and Scots tunes in the same mode I get an image of a lad or lassie tripping down a country lane on the way to a pleasurable evening out. T'would make a good movie sound clip. I note...

Re-inventing the wheel. A strange turn of phrase in a traditional music forum. Over the past week I've been sifting through thousands of trad Irish and UK tunes and songs on the web. What still never ceases to amaze after 30 odd years is the abundance and quality of anon music. If you're the kind of...

Harmonica is a great instrument for Irish traditional music. A good friend, Robin Kane, and I (on the tin whistle) used to play a lot in Lerwick (Shetland) way back. We never had to buy a beer so it must have sounded OK. Robin plays the box now, a natural progression, and sooner or later I'll get 'r...

Planxty still sounds good all these years later if you want to get restful. For more power and arrangment for guitar you'll want the Paul Brady version of Arthur McBride http://www.paulbrady.com. Words and music on the site. This is the version Bob Dylan recorded although I've never heard him sing(?...