Morris Dancing FAQs [Music Sources]

A Handbook of Morris Dances (The Black Book): by Lionel Bacon
Vaughan Hully of Shakespeare Morris Men converted all of Lionel Bacon's "Black Book" tunes into abc format files. They are indexed by this Morris Ring project by tradition, and each link in turn links to all the abc version(s) of the tunes.; • Index: <http://www.themorrisring.org/more/Tunes/index.html>; • Maintainer: John Maher <j.p.maher@gmail.com>; • Categories: Books : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2006-09-06

abc Library of Morris Tunes: This is a library of morris tunes as used by dances in the traditions of a number of different English villages. It includes just about everything for Adderbury and much of Bledington and portions of the repertoire for other traditions. These are the principal traditions danced by Steve's team, Seabright. The remaining selection of tunes is inspired by the favorite dances of other teams in the SF Bay area, the West Coast, Minnesota, Virginia.; Steve has also experimented in embedding dance notation in abc tune files. His "Morris Dance Notation Using abc" page is an experiment in using abc to "typeset" a morris dance by generating a gif notation from the abc. Note that Steve is no longer supporting this page and has relegated it to the "music.old" virtual dustbin.; • Homepage: <http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/morris/music/>; • Dance Notation: <http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/morris/music.old/wwwdance.html>; • Maintainer: Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org>; • Categories: Dance Notes : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-08-27

abc Music Notation: abc is an ASCII (text) musical notation developed by Chris Walshaw to enable musicians to exchange tunes by email (originally Irish musicians on the IRTRAD-L listserv). Since then, whole databases of tunes have sprung up on the web and a number of programs for composing, playing and printing tunes in staff notation have been written for Unix, Macintosh and IBM PC computers are freely available.; In the absence of active participation by Chris Walshaw, a movement is afoot on the abcusers listserv to implement a revision to the standard. A draft version of the standard, 1.7.6, is now several years old. Although it has become the de facto standard in much of the abc software, this draft is overdue for revision and publication as the actual standard.; • Homepage: <http://www.abcmusicnotation.org/>; • Alternative Homepage: <http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/>; • Specification: <http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc2mtex/abc.txt>; • Maintainer: Chris Walshaw [Contact Form]; • Categories: Music Software : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-06-10

Bassett Street Hounds Border Morris Dance Tunes: A collection of the tunes to recently composed border dances as done by the Bassett Street Hounds. The source for some of these is Andy Anderson of Red Stags Morris and others are traditional.; • Tunes: <http://bassett-street-hounds.org/dances/>; • abc File: <http://bassett-street-hounds.org/dances/tunes.abc>; • Maintainer: Tom Keays [Contact Form]; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2005-03-20

Brother Steve's tin-whistle pages: This website is dedicated to the playing of Irish traditional music on the whistle and to helping learners improve their understanding of Irish music and ways of playing it on this instrument. There is a good overview of technique, notated tunes, and mp3 samples. A knowledge of music notation is helpful but not necessary.; • Home page: <http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/>; • Tunes: <http://www.rogermillington.com/tunetoc/index.html>; • Categories: Instruments : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-06-11

Concertina.Net: This site is run by Paul Schwartz as a information service to the worldwide concertina community. Paul's love is for the Anglo concertina (and Irish music) but the site is democratic and includes just about any kind of concertina and music. It includes a very active discussion forum, a buy and sell board, an abc music database, tutorials and references to instruction materials, and an extensive set of links.; • Homepage: <http://www.concertina.net/>; • Forum: <http://www.concertina.net/forums/>; • Maintainer: Paul Schwartz <paul@concertina.net>; • Categories: Discussion Groups : Instruments : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-04-22

Fiddle Players' Discussion List. FIDDLE-L@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU: FIDDLE-L is a mailing list that exists for the discussion of fiddles, fiddle-tunes, fiddlers, and fiddle-playing. It has many very knowledgeable participants, including many famous professional fiddle players, and scholars. One of its members is keeping an archive of tunes exchanged on the list.; • Archives: <http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/fiddle-l.html>; • abc Tune Archive: <http://www6.bayarea.net/~otter/fiddling/tunes/fidlarch.html>; • Categories: Discussion Groups : Instruments : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-01-24

Fiddler's Companion: The Fiddler's Companion is a huge encyclopedia of over 30,000 fiddle tunes from the Celtic, British and American traditions, created by Andrew Kuntz. Most tunes contain notes and anecdotes, references to published or recorded versions, and several thousand have abc-format tunes included; • Homepage: <http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc/>; • Maintainer: Ceolas [Contact Form]; • Categories: Instruments : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-01-24

Frank's ABC Site: Part of Musica Viva, a massive collection of sheet music, midi files, and music software sources, this is an excellent tutorial to learning abc. It includes a searchable "encyclopedia" of abc terms and a database of applications for doing just about anything you can think of using the standard.; • Homepage: <http://www.musicaviva.com/abc/index.tpl>; • Musica Viva: <http://www.musicaviva.com/>; • Maintainer: Frank Nordberg <frnordbe@online.no>; • Categories: Music Software : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-07-01

Gog Magog Molly Dances Notation: Gog Magog is a molly team from Cambridge. They maintain a set of dance notes for traditional dances that were recorded by Cyril Papworth.; • Dance Notation: <http://swaine.me.uk/molly/>; • Repertoire and Tunes: <http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/molly/dances.htm>; • Maintainer: Andrew Swaine <andrew-webmaster@swaine.me.uk>; • Categories: Dance Notes : Molly : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-12-07

Henrik Norbeck's abc Tunes: Henrik Norbeck has one of the most comprehensive collection of dance tunes on the web and his index is outstanding. Largely Irish, Scottish, and Scandinavian, his index is one of my first stops if I'm looking for a session-ready version of a tune.; • abc Homepage: <http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc.htm>; • Tune Index: <http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc/index/index.html>; • Maintainer: Henrik Norbeck <henrik.norbeck@mailbox.swipnet.se>; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2002-11-29

James Allwright's abc tunes: The original Nottingham Music Database maintained by Eric Foxley contains over 1000 Folk Tunes stored in a special text format. James Allwright converted the bulk of this database to abc notation. Has a section of morris tunes.; • Nottingham Music Database: <http://perun.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/~jra/NMD>; • Morris Tunes: <http://perun.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/~jra/NMD/morris.txt>; • James' Collection: <http://perun.hscs.wmin.ac.uk/~jra/abcMIDI/coll.txt>; • Maintainer: James Allwright <J.R.Allwright@westminster.ac.uk>; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2002-11-29

John Chambers' abc TuneFinder

John Chambers has worked out a system of perl indexing "robots" that create an index of abc tune libraries on the web. Complementing this, he has developed a search engine that extracts the target abc and converts it on the fly to postscript, pdf, midi and gif. Very impressive work! I have replicated the title search box here. Visit his own search page for more information and search options.

• Homepage: <http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/>

• Tune Finder: <http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/findtune.html>

• Source Code: <http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/CGI/abc/>

• Maintainer: John Chambers <jc@trillian.mit.edu>

• Categories: Music Software : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-02-05

Morris Dance Tunes; Collected from Traditional Sources and Arranged for Piano Solo: Cecil J. Sharp and Herbert C. Macilwaine
10 pt. in 1 v.
London: Novello and Company, Ltd., 190?-1911.
[etext: University of Michigan Digital Library]; Note: "These tunes are issued in connection with 'The Morris book,' part 1 (New edition)"
Note: Pts. 9-10, by Cecil J. Sharp and George Butterworth.; This is a scanned image version of the text of the book. Several image resolutions and formats are available.; • e-Book: <http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=genpub;idno=AEA1639.0001.001>; • PURL: <http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AEA1639>; • Maintainer: Tom Keays [Contact Form]; • Categories: Books : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2005-02-17

Orchesography: by Thoinot Arbeau
translated by Mary Stewart Evans
Dover Books, 1967
ISBN 0-486-21745-0

Probably the most valuable book on 16th-century dances and dance music. Describes the galliards, pavans, branles, gavottes, lavolta, basse dance, morris dance, sword dance, canary, etc., with detailed instructions of steps involved. Throughout the text are references to the practices of 16th-century instrumental music, in addition to 47 dance tunes with 16th-century barring and notation.; • Available: <http://store.yahoo.com/doverpublications/0486217450.html>; • abc notation: <http://anamnese.online.fr/abc/arbeau.abc>; • Categories: Books : Music Sources : Sword Dancing

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-08-25

Roots of Folk: Old English, Scots, and Irish Songs and Tunes: A massive compendium of indexes of collected songs from England, Scotland and Ireland. "Some are early versions of traditional songs, but most material is pre-folk 'popular style' (and some not 'popular'). Some pieces later became traditional, but for others only the general theme shows up in later traditional pieces." Excellent assemblage of links to other song and tune collections.; The site seems to be gone. Bruce Olson died a couple of years ago, but his family had been maintaining it in his memory. Hopefully this resource will return. I found a link to a small amount of information on the Mudcat Cafe website, including a link to an archived version of the site on the Internet Archive.; • Homepage: <http://users.erols.com/olsonw/>; • Mudcat Cafe: <http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=74172&messages=14>; • Internet Archive version: <http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://users.erols.com/olsonw/>; • Categories: Music Sources : Songs

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-10-25

Sessioneer: This site, largely Irish in content, is intended to be a useful resource for musicians. The site is free to search and browse for tunes, but registered users become part of a community and can contribute tunes and other content. Other sections include a comprehesive database of Irish music sessions, musician directories, and music reviews.; Mike also has an excellent tutor for learning to play the tin whistle.; • Homepage: <http://www.sessioneer.com/>; • Maintainer: Mike Simpson <msimpson@sessioneer.com>; • Categories: Instruments : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-01-24

The Session: A community-driven database of Irish session tunes. Membership is required only to submit tunes; anyone can search or browse the database. Tunes are linked to discographies and vice versa so browsing is very easily done. Also has member submitted links and session listings.; • Homepage: <http://www.thesession.org/>; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-03-03

TORUS : Tunes ORdered Using Shape: Torus is a system for organising and identifying tunes without knowing their titles. It works by indexing the tunes according to their shape, i.e. according to how they go up or down in pitch from each note to the next. This sequence of jumps up or down is represented as a string of u's and d's, and this string is used to locate the tune in the index. The Torus database contains information about mostly English and other folk music tunes. It has over 1400 versions of over 1100 tunes.; • Homepage: <http://www.ThomasBending.co.uk/torus/>; • Maintainer: Thomas Bending <ThomasBending@hotmail.com>; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2003-03-03

TUNEdb : the traditional music database: TUNEdb is a database of traditional tunes from many different parts of the world. The information on the database is put here by contributors with the tunes themselves entered in ABC format. You can find tunes by entering their name or, if you do not know the tune's name, by entering a part of the tune itself in ABC form or by using TUNEdb's special 'down-up' search format.; • TUNEdb: <http://tunedb.woodenflute.com/>; • Maintainer: Richard Moon <richard@tunedb.org>; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2002-11-29

TuneIndex: Want to find the printed version of a tune? You can now search James Stewart's master index of hundreds of tunebooks, with a total of over 55,000 entries. This index is only for tunes published on paper: this will not help if you are looking for downloadable music. Once you find an entry of interest, please consult the Bibliography to see where and when the collection was published.; • Homepage: <http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/TuneIndex/>; • Bibliography: <http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/TuneIndex/biblio.html>; • Maintainer: Ceolas [Contact Form]; • Categories: Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2002-11-29

Tunes at Ceolas: Ceolas, which name is a combination of the Irish/Scots Gaelic words "ceol" (music) and "eolas" (knowledge), has a listing of some of the more important tune collections on the web. This is also a source for finding music, largely abc format, software readers and players.; • Tunebooks: <http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/>; • Maintainer: Ceolas [Contact Form]; • Categories: Music Software : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2002-11-29

web-wide abc index: Chris Walshaw developed the original index of abc tune libraries found on the web. It is available as one large list of tune names with links to the source pages on the web, and also as a "sectionalised" version, divided alphabetically into parts. No search engine, but the indexes are fine.; • Homepage: <http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/#index>; • Sectionalized Index: <http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/index/split.html>; • abc2mtex Software: <http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc2mtex/>; • Maintainer: Chris Walshaw [Contact Form]; • Categories: Music Software : Music Sources

FAQ Entry Updated: 2004-06-10