Heatwaves, virtual banjos, music notation, the Carpenter Collection, Sara Grey and heatwaves

Originally published in FoT Issue 97: Oct-Dec 2003

At the time of writing, gentle reader, it is too hot to surf the Internet, let alone write a column about it. I know that by the time you read this, the heatwave of 2003 will be no more than a memory, and, if you’re anything like me, you probably won’t even remember which year it was. But if you’ll forgive my audacity, I will just relax with a cooling pint or two while my random article generator does the work for me.

Desktop Banjo is a great little shareware program for anyone learning the banjo. It’s a tuner, tablature generator, accompaniment player and MIDI file generator. The software allows you to see and hear chords, scales and songs on an animated banjo neck. You can use the sample song files to start learning new material right away or you can easily create songs and lessons for yourself. For the uninitiated, being shareware means you can download it from the Internet and try it without paying for it. But that doesn’t mean you can get away with using it forever at the programmer’s expense, because its save facility is disabled unless you pay the asking price, though it can still print tablature and output Midi files. But for just $29.95 (about £18.50) you can’t really complain. It comes with five different tunings, plus a custom tuning that you can set yourself. It’s very easy to use, as the notation is generated or written in a text editor. It can create ASCII tablature for uploading to Internet newsgroups or graphic tablature for printing. A full chord dictionary is included. (Online update 120208: The program seems to have grown. It is now just over £25 but includes guitars, pianos, bass, banjo, mandolin and drums. Here is the main site.)

The art - or is it a science? - of music notation has come on leaps and bounds thanks largely to the Internet, by virtue of the number of users wanting to swap tunes. We’re not talking about piracy here, just the same sort of sharing of melodies that goes on at a session but conducted at a distance. Recently cyberbabe Dick Gaughan put forward proposals for a new newsgroup - called uk.music.notation - for the discussion of all matters related to musical notation from a UK perspective. To quote from Dick’s proposal on uk.music.folk: “On-topic discussion includes notation systems, software used for notating and transcribing, problems such as transposition, scoring techniques and other general questions relating to notation. Discussions relating to musical criticism are strictly off-topic.” As I write this, the newsgroup had been approved and created on Usenet, but the only posts relate to its setting up, for which there is a strict and quite rigorous procedure. But hopefully by the time “Folk On Tap” drops through your letterbox there will be healthy discussions going on.

The catalogue of the James Madison Carpenter Collection has been made available online courtesy of the University of Sheffield’s Humanities Research Institute, for anyone to search or browse. The collection is one of the largest and most important collections of folk song and folk drama ever made in Britain. Carpenter was born in Mississippi, but travelled 40,000 miles around the UK in an Austin Seven between 1929 and 1935. He searched for singers of sea shanties, traditional ballads and folk songs and performers of mummers’ plays and recorded their performances, as well as noting down their words. The collection is held at the Archive of Folk Culture, in the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress, but it had never been catalogued and was largely overlooked - until now, that is. The papers in the collection were microfilmed shortly after they were bought by the Library of Congress from Carpenter in 1972 and the discs copied on to tape. Copies of the microfilms and tapes are available at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp House, and a copy of the microfilm is available at the Central Library, Aberdeen. The eventual aim, once all the permissions have been obtained, is to make the collection generally available online.

While on the subject of Americans who put us Brits to shame when it comes to keeping an eye on the tradition, the delightful Sara Grey - along with her son, Kieron Means - has a web site which is well worth a visit. Articles and information about the gigs, workshops and various educational projects she is involved in are included. By the way, on the EFDSS web site is another new resource - the Sessions Page. (Online update 120208: not any more it doesn't.) When I looked, there were only three sessions, so if you know or attend a regular session, make yourself known to the webmaster, and get some free publicity.

Error message: Explorer caused an invalid page fault in random article generator.dll. Please save all work and restart your computer. I’ve got a better idea. See you next time.