Tunebook ABC - First Edition

This site contains a transcription into ABC notation of the old, first edition of the tunes used by Tuneworks in the workshops and sessions that they run at various UK folk festivals.

Transcription of the tunes in the new, second edition of the Tunebook are available.

While lots of versions of most of these tunes are already available on sites like The Session, the ones here are intended to be note-for-note identical to the versions published in the Tuneworks Tunebook.

ABC Files

• All the tunes as a single file, suitable for further processing or importing into other programs. iPhone and iPad users might want to try out Tunebook which seems to handle this file OK.
• Individual tunes (or all the tunes in a Zip archive). Here (and elsewhere) the numbers at the start of the filename encode the number of the page in the original Tunebook on which the tune appears and its place on that page.

Other formats

This site also contains the results of processing the ABC files into various other formats:

• All the tunes converted to MIDI files (or all the MIDI files in a Zip archive)

• All the tunes converted to mp3 audio files (or all the mp3 files in a Zip archive)

• tunebook.pdf A printable copy of the tunes using much the same layout as the Tuneworks original.

• The printed tunebook for transposing instruments:
  • tunebook-eflat.pdf to E♭ (e.g. for alto sax)
  • tunebook-bflat.pdf to B♭ (e.g. for clarinet, soprano or tenor sax )
  • tunebook-bassclef.pdf in the bass clef

• One tune per page for various instruments:
  • tunebook-guitar-dwhistle.pdf with Guitar chord diagrams and D Whistle tabs.
  • tunebook-mandolin.pdf with Mandolin tabs.
  • tunebook-ukulele.pdf with Ukulele chord diagrams.
  • Mountain Dulcimer:
    • tunebook-dulcimer-chords-dad.pdf with example chord diagrams for D-A-D tuning
    • tunebook-dulcimer-tabs-dxd.pdf with simple melody tabs for D-A-D and D-G-D tuning ('D' and 'G' tunes only)
    • tunebook-dulcimer-tabs-a.pdf with simple melody tabs for melody strings tuned to 'A'

• A compact index to all the tunes, just showing the first couple of bars (handy when trying to remember the notes for a particular tune or identify a tune's name from its start):
  • cheatsheet.pdf just the tunes.
  • cheatsheet-dwhistle.pdf including D Whistle tabs.
  • cheatsheet-mandolin.pdf including Mandolin tabs.
  • For Mountain Dulcimers:
    • cheatsheet-dulcimer-d.pdf with melody string(s) tuned to 'D'.
    • cheatsheet-dulcimer-a.pdf with melody string(s) tuned to 'A.

Mistakes

The transcription is bound to contain mistakes, defined as (almost) anything that isn't the same as it is in the Tuneworks Tunebook (ignoring minor stylistic differences and the differences listed below). Likewise, the various derived formats are unlikely to be error free even if the ABC transcriptions are correct. Please report any mistakes that you find, either by creating a GitHub issue or (better) a pull request, or (if that doesn't mean anything to you) by emailing Jon Warbrick <jon.warbrick@googlemail.com>.

The following differences from Tuneworks Tunebook are expected:

• Each tune stands on its own, rather than being part of a set. As a result, they all include time signatures, and the key change warning at the end of 'The Banshee' isn't included.
• What would be a final 'e' at the end of the first section repeat in My Darling Asleep is omitted, largely because abc2midi complains that it makes the repeat bar too long.

Notes

This work was inspired by Paul Hardy's Tunebooks and his tunebook process page informed the initial processing pipeline. Robin Clark, once of Bird Rock Dulcimers, fixed a number of mistakes in the Dulcimer versions. John Hinton of John Hinton Music provided much-needed music theory advice.

The master copies of these tunes, along with the tools used to produce everything else, can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/jw35/tunebook-abc.

This transcription and the subsequent processing is the work of Jon Warbrick <jon.warbrick@googlemail.com>. The transcribed ABC files and the various other files on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons 'Attribution ShareAlike' licence. This means you can "remix, tweak, and build upon" this work even for commercial purposes, as long as you credit me and Tuneworks and license your new creations under the identical terms. The licensing of the Tuneworks Tunebook on which this work is based is unclear, other than this extracted from the introduction: "The book is downloadable from http://www.tuneworks.co.uk/. Please feel free to use it as widely as you like".