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Software: Tabulator agent

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written by: geert

Diagrams wouldn't be that difficult with what I have now since it has a concept of 'chords' based on the time interval between key presses. Ideally I think though that it would probably require metronome support to be useful. It could then detect which keys have been played during bars/beats and aggregate those in a chord diagram. However, I suspect that there will be a lot of 'wrong' diagrams though, so maybe a manual process would indeed be better.

written by: geert

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 21:11:44 +0000 GMT

Hi everyone,

Last night, Mike and I started talking about an agent that would record tablature while you play the Eigenharp. Since EigenD 2.0 carries around both musical and physical key coordinates, this sounded like a fun quick project to write ... so I did:

http://www.eigenlabs.com/wiki/Tabulator/

For developers this might be interesting, since it only contains Python code since there's no time-sensitive performance data being generated.

This is a rudimentary first pass and I'm sure many improvements can be made, feel free to hack away at it or to suggest ideas.

Take care,

Geert


written by: NothanUmber

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 22:03:03 +0000 GMT

Very cool, both from the what-it-does and the how-it's-done (Python only) side!
Perhaps we could use Lilypond export for note lengths (so you don't have to know the song) and pictures of the chord shape for better memorization:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.12/input/lsr/lilypond-snippets/Fretted-strings
It seems to be possible to use 5 string tabs and special tunings, here an example for a banjo:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.12/Documentation/user/lilypond/Banjo.en.html

-Ferdinand


written by: mikemilton

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 23:05:30 +0000 GMT

Great job, Geert!


written by: geert

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 06:50:31 +0000 GMT

@Ferdinand, that could be an interesting avenue, feel free to take a stab at it. One thing that might not be possible (need to check) is that on the Eigenharp each course can have multiple keys pressed, which is why I added a notation like: 3|5|6 where three keys on the same course are pressed simultaneously. With traditional stringed instruments that's not meaningful to write, so I'm not sure it's possible in traditional notation packages.


written by: geert

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 06:57:56 +0000 GMT

I got thinking now, since the data is saved in a raw XML format, it would not be that difficult to allow Tabulator to play those back. However, not musically, but with lights. It could show the next step as lights on the keygroup and wait until the corresponding keys are all pressed. Once that's the case, the next step is show, etc. For this to be really useful, some kind of easy to use tablature GUI editor for the XML data would be really cool ... any takers? ;-)


written by: NothanUmber

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 20:30:01 +0000 GMT

Yes, a notation GUI with editing capabilities would be important as no existing solution does it for the Eigenharps (optimally with sequencer capabilities that allow to show and edit the underlaying unquantized per-note events)
Playback with lights that even waits until you pressed the keys is very cool, too. (You can have something similar by using the MIDI illuminator and playing the phrase you want to practise in a loop)

Am still trying to find really matching notations that focus on these properties
1) easy on the mind regarding transfer from score to instrument (this is quite good with tabulature)
2) allows to understand musical structure on the score (that's one of the weak points of tabulature)
3) works with various layouts (a weak point of the bar graph "groups of four" approach I was fiddling around with - it is pretty good in 1&2 but only really works for the horizontal layout. This is nice with Tabulature)
4) easy to write with (one) pen&paper (one of the major selling points of traditional notation)
5) "dense" enough that you can play from printed scores without having to turn pages too often

Getting all those things together is challenging, but I don't give up - yet.


written by: mikemilton

Sat, 4 Feb 2012 10:53:19 +0000 GMT

I (fleetingly) had considered something like chord diagrams (presumably to be placed over a melody as in typical fake books). 'Didn't get far.

Diagrams

It would be a manual process (?, given EigenTabs charts) but it is dense, allows the player flexibility (in the same sense as guitar fingering charts) and so on.

Observations:
some like tab, some like fake books they are just variation available in parallel.
starting diagrams from a root note has some advantages


written by: geert

Sat, 4 Feb 2012 17:10:05 +0000 GMT

Diagrams wouldn't be that difficult with what I have now since it has a concept of 'chords' based on the time interval between key presses. Ideally I think though that it would probably require metronome support to be useful. It could then detect which keys have been played during bars/beats and aggregate those in a chord diagram. However, I suspect that there will be a lot of 'wrong' diagrams though, so maybe a manual process would indeed be better.



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