New Tabbing system

[bubudi]

thanks, dennis. seems like a nice idea and must have taken you quite a while to develop. the disadvantage is that it involves every user having to download and install the font, and even then i'm not sure if it's cross platform?

[Dennis103]

TTF fonts were designed to be cross platform but whether that is true, or needed, I don't know. You could use images of course. I don't know how the current tabbing system on this forum works, maybe that uses images too? For emails I normally use spaced-out letters and if people want to use a monospaced font (to align bell and douns properly over each other) you use the Code BBCode that is already present on the forum:

Code: Select all

s . . s|s . t t|
b . t t|. . s .|
x . x x|. x x .|
o . . m|. . o .|

Hope this helps.

[bubudi]

indeed that's what we've been doing for the last few years but the new system is a huge improvement and james has managed to allow embedding tabs with bbcode.

[komadich]

Here is my proposal for annotating the microtiming - see the black dots. I use one scale like this and one scale for the 12/8 rhythms just under this one, so I can express in both.

[bubudi]

any notation system used on the site should have the ability to be easily generated online by members and also be easy to understand for anyone who is familiar with some other form of notation used with west african percussion.

[komadich]

any notation system used on the site should have the ability to be easily generated online by members and also be easy to understand for anyone who is familiar with some other form of notation used with west african percussion.

I consider this to be easily generated, as you can use the same mechanism to specify the swing as to write the tabs - using the boxes in the HTML Form. Of course it is enough to specify the swing only once.
Easy to understand is another question, since nobody does note this microtiming in the western notation. As far as I know even the names of different types of swing don't exist. If the names or a standard notation would exist, than it would be easy.

[bubudi]

am keeping my eye on this... james has a couple of gri-gris up his sleeve.

[bubudi]

james has updated the notation system and it can now handle ternary rhythms... just in time for our rhythm of the month discussion on mendiani!

it's a little basic but it will be updated again in due course. feel free to make any suggestions. just keep in mind that james has done a lot of work on this in his very limited free time, so it may take a while for any suggestions to be implemented. also, i wrote a stack of suggestions above, so read those first to see that your suggestion hasn't already been posted.

once you create a notation tab, you can embed it into a message. great for adding visual notation to a discussion on a rhythm, accompaniment, solo phrase, etc.

[Carl]

I can't seem to get this to work, I'm on a Mac, using Safari 4.0.3.

I can fill out the information (title, notes, instrument, rhythm etc)

but where it has the "tab" area, it is blank, I can hit the add measure and delete row buttons, and something "seems" to happen, but there is no editable notation!

Help... I have a sangba variation for Mendiani that I want to post!

C

[michi]

You are talking about http://djembefola.com/tabsystem/tab.php right?

This works for me. But I can't figure out how to get a ternary notation.

Cheers,

Michi.

[Carl]

No, I was trying the new system...
http://djembefola.com/drum-notation/index.php

I'd post a screen grab, but it's the end of the day at work and I'm spent!

C

[michi]

I'm seeing the same with Safari 4.0.4:

Screen shot with Safari

tab.jpg (53.26 KiB) Viewed 433 times

The tab is just a blank area.

Cheers,

Michi.

[bubudi]

sorry guys, i meant to post a tutorial. i have an hour to have a quick nap and then i'm off to repetition... i'll post later.

all i can say is it's working for me.

p's

[bubudi]

here's how to create notation and embed it into your message:

1. login to have access to the drum notation app.
there is no link yet to the app in the menus yet, so bookmark this for now: http://djembefola.com/drum-notation/index.php

you will see this screen:

drum notation opening screen

notation1.JPG (36.43 KiB) Viewed 419 times

2. next, click on 'create new tab' (tab is short for tablature, in case you didn't know). fill in the fields for the title, trad rhythm and description.

starting a new tab

notation2.JPG (28.05 KiB) Viewed 419 times

select if you want the notation to be public or private. if it's public, all members (but not guests) can see it through the drum notation app (you have to be logged in to access it). if it's private, only you will be able to see it through the drum notation app. however, if you later embed the tab into a public forum message, everyone who checks out your post will be able to see it. the rhythm of the month subforum is members only, so if you post it there, it will only be seen by members (to be further restricted to active members at a later date). you can also embed the notation in a private message, giving you the ability to restrict view to only a handful of people.

i would suggest using 'private' the first time you try this, so if you make a mistake it's not on public record then switch to public after that, unless you intend to hide the tab from all but a small selection of people.

3. select the drum type. note 'bell' is an option for bell only. if you select one of the 3 dunun, it will allow you to enter both the bell and dunun patterns.

entering further details

notation3.JPG (15.83 KiB) Viewed 419 times

4. next, select the rhythm timing, either binary (4/4, 16/8 etc) or ternary (3/4, 12/8 etc). after you select this, some cells magically appear below, allowing you to enter the notation. if you selected a dunun as your drum type, you will have two rows of cells. in this case i chose kenkeni, so the upper row is for the bell and the lower row is for the kenkeni.

entering the notation

notation4.JPG (25.95 KiB) Viewed 419 times

5. you have the option to add another row (or double row) to the notation. some patterns may take more than 8 beats, so will need extra rows. in this case i want to include a variation of the kenkeni bell, keeping the same basic kenkeni pattern.

adding additional rows

notation5.JPG (26.42 KiB) Viewed 419 times

6. once done, click 'generate tab'.

previewing and adjusting microtiming

notation6.JPG (63.83 KiB) Viewed 419 times

the lines of tab appear, allowing you to slide the notes about to adjust the microtiming. note that i have moved the first of each double bell stroke closer to the second, to more accurately depict the swing of mendiani. these adjustments are automatically saved.

7. when you're done, view the completed tab by clicking either 'view public tabs' or 'view private tabs'. i accidentally created two public tabs for the same thing. select the tab you want to view.

viewing a saved tab

notation7.JPG (33.1 KiB) Viewed 391 times

8. note the url (address) of the drum notation. i've highlighted this below in yellow. it has an id number. note that id number.

noting the tab url

notation8.JPG (47.82 KiB) Viewed 419 times

9. create a new message or topic as you normally would (do not use quick reply). to embed the notation into the message, click on the 'rhythm' button located just above all the smilies.

10. insert the id number between the rhythm tags. in this case:

Code: Select all

[rhythm]341[/rhythm]

will result in:



et voila!

[James]

Thanks for this Bubudi!

I haven't finished with this yet... I have a few improvements that I'll be uploading soon. This week hopefully....