Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace

Subject: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 12:47 PM

I don't understand the way Digital Tradition has this song transcribed, some of the notes have doubles on the same staff. I am by no means an acomplished musician, but I have not seen this before. Is it some transcription error, is it optional notes? I'm sure someone will iluminate the subject for me. Here is the addy for the page http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/lookup.cgi?ti=AMAZGRAC&tt=AMAZGRAC

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: MMario
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 12:55 PM

Melody and harmony on the same staff. Use either the upper or the lower notes.

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: Noreen
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 01:34 PM

Upper notes are the melody here, Nick.

Piano and choral scores are written this way.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 01:43 PM

Thanks for the info. A further question why is It dispayed that way for pennywhistle notation? Nick

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: Noreen
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 01:47 PM

For those who play two whistles at the same time? (I've seen it done!) :0)

Probably because that was the simplest format available without rewriting, Nick, don't know.

Noreen

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 01:56 PM

Thanks Again, the problem with playing two whistles is I can only get 2 different notes per hand (4 if you count upper octave as a different note), if I go for more I drop the whistle.

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: MMario
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 01:59 PM

Most of the tunes for the DT are single melody line - no ornementation, no harmony- I don't know why the one for Amazing grace has both the melody and a simple harmony -(except possibly because some people sing that harmony AS the melody)- the numachi site converts the songwrite files in the DT into notation of the various sorts. I suspect it was too much bother to write a routine that would split out the melody from the harmony for pennywhistle notation when very few of the files have a harmony line. You would have to ask the owner of the site.

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: Burke
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 04:25 PM

It looks like the original source of the 2 part midi might be from the Electronic Hymnal

Don't try to use that penneywhistle notation because it's for the bottom instead of the top line. It's also misbarred & throws an extra beat in somewhere, so it ends up with some strange things going on.

Alternative versions in G instead of F can be found at JC's ABC tune finder. Search Amazing Grace & click on find (wide).

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 04:58 PM

I figured out fairly quickly from trying to play from the tabliture that something was amiss. How do I contact the site owner to point out the problems? (After all he/she has done for me I call up wanting more!)

Subject: RE: Confused By Notation on Amazing Grace
From: Burke
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 05:38 PM

The scores are generated by a program which reads the SongWright format [of Mudcat] and converts it into a format usable by Lilypond, a utility for typesetting music. The files there date back to 1999.

The score that appears is not the same as the tune that currently plays on the Amazing Grace page. If the site owner updates the version of Mudcat underlying, that might fix the problem.