New Tabbing system

[James]

Hi Guys,

I've been working on a djembe rhythm tabbing system. This started because I wanted a way to tab accurately and neatly and there was literally no satisfactory solution.

You can consider this an alpha version

I have plenty of ideas for improvement list. If it seems that this will be of value, I will develop it further. I have tons of idea, but it needs to prove it's worth spending more time on...

Anyway, let me know what you and if you have any suggestions, please let me know...

The good:
1) Microtiming
2) Make your tabs public or private

The bad:
1) Only available in 4/4 for now.
2) Limited to 16 notes per bar.

Todo List:
Allow input of phrasing in 3/6/8 notes per beat.
6/8

[James]

Can we please keep the djembe tab sucks in that thread. Thanks

[bubudi]

i've already expressed my views on tabbing/notation and am still skeptical this will work, however, done together with recordings like in the bamanafoli thread, it's a useful tool, so i hope we can develop it. it goes without saying that this tab system will be a lot more valuable if it can be embedded into forum messages. particularly if we can embed particular lines of tab for discussion...

[bubudi]

ok, after checking out the tabbing system, here's a list of preliminary suggestions:

usability
1. did not have option to save tab as public/private. tab automatically was saved as private.
2. rhythm drop-down list is nowhere near complete. can add the following: bada, bao, bari/didadi, wassolon soli, dalah, donaba, farabakan, fe, foule, fura, gbunkundo, gomba, kala, kele m'se, kofili, komo, kono, kontemuru, koro, koteba, lekule, nama, sidiyasa, sigi, sogolon, soliwulen, suku, sungurubani, tage, tani, tiantigi, tisamba, woima and zaouli.
3. would also suggest adding an 'other' option to the rhythm drop-down list, which would bring up a text box allowing the user to type the name of the rhythm.
4. bambafoli and dalfo are non-traditional rhythms (composed by dutchmen). could probably remove those. the list also contains duplicates (bando djei/bandogialli, lolo x2, djelidon/lamba/sanja x4, komodenu/koreduga, ngri/kirin/wasolonka x3).
5. allow multi-line tabs. many dunun, bass djembe, solo parts and breaks will need more than 4 bars (may need as many as 32 bars).
6. allow groups of 3 beats for 12/8 rhythms. for konkoba and koreduga you will need lines made up of 6 bars of 3's.
7. maybe use checkboxes to select what lines of tab to add... for instance: sangban, kenkeni, dununba, sangban variation, dununba variation, djembe 1, djembe 2, djembe 3, bass djembe, call, intro, break, solo 1, solo 2, etc.

legibility
8. limit the characters that can be used in the tabs so people follow a standardised notation across all tabs. add a 'key' on the page so people know what symbols to use as they create/edit their tab.
10. make any strokes that have altered microtiming change colour so that people actually notice the altered placement of the stroke.
11. need the ability to pair up dunun strokes with bell strokes
12. need to be able to add an indicator to show where a pattern begins as many things don't start on what westerners might call the '1'.
13. allow labels for each section of tab, so people can label parts as 'call', 'djembe 1', 'solo 3', 'sangban variation', etc.
14. correct this rendering problem i get on a 800x600 17" LCD screen using firefox:

[James]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I feel that most of them are good ideas, so will review and revise asap...

[Paul]

Fair play man all your work is appreciated, as a techno-fool I didnt understand anything.
But would love to be able to swop ideas

[djembefola.com admin]

99

[Marc_M]

Hey James -

I think the tabbing is a great idea - if jazz musicians can transcribe jazz music with similar issues of complicated timing, I don't see why it isn't possible to tab drumming patterns.

I might suggest using a table approach similar to the WAP pages. I have my own system which I will send to you. Maybe you can get some ideas.

Also, to deal with microtiming issues, you may look at the solutions jazz musicians use such as noting the word "shuffle" to show quarter notes are to be played like a "tied triplet" (or show the symbol of two quarter notes equals two triplets with the first two triplets tied together). This means you can tab sections as straight quarter note, eight notes etc., but are to be played as if they are more like triplets.

Here is an example using eight notes

http://www.dolmetsch.com/shuffle.gif

BTW - keep up the great work. Sometimes coming to this website is my way of staying sane on a crazy day !!!

[bubudi]

i think that james' notation system is way better than the one on the wap pages for the microtiming and anyone who has read the books by mamady keita, famoudou konate, ibro konate or abdoul doumbia are familiar with this notation style. the box system (as used on wap pages) attempts to fit this complex music in too simplified a form. i have seen wap pages attempt to represent microtiming in a few cases and it's pretty weak in my opinion. for soboninkun the author of wap pages ended up having to defer to another person's graphical notation style. check it for yourself.

in the end i don't know if it's possible to do justice to the microtiming through any visual representation, much less to expect people (particularly beginners) to understand and perceive the exact micro placement of notes being represented. a precise and elegant representation will get us closer, and it's now possible to embed this notation as well as recordings into forum posts. in this way, people will be able to listen to the rhythm or part with its correct feel as well as have a visual representation of the music complete with microtiming. pretty cool

[bubudi]

nice one, james!

let me give it a go...

[Marc_M]

If one is going to use the box style, then there needs to be a way of graphically showing the connection between the bell and duns that is easy to see. I find it difficult to easily make the connection when the tab is spaced on lines that are far apart.

[bubudi]

i wouldn't call this box style, and there are no bell parts in the example above. i agree about the need to link bell parts to the dunun strokes. that's suggestion no. 7 above.

in the notation used in mamady's book and others, a bell stroke is represented by a notch above the relevant line. i.e.

Code: Select all

Sangban:
`_____`__`   __`__`__
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
      S  S        s


i think it should be no drama to implement something like this in the current system. it would be a good idea to allow for microtiming with the bell stroke placement as well.

also, would it be possible to make the tab font smaller so you can fit twice as many bars per line of tab?

[Dugafola]

this may be ofn...but i thought you dorks may like this

http://tcd.freehosting.net/djembemande/microtiming.html

[SjpielseWolf]

why not just use the same thing as percussion studio does? it works fine.. atleast for me it does

[Dennis103]

You're welcome to check out and use my Yankadi true type font, which is inspired by the notation that Mamady Keita uses in his book. It allows for triplets (3 over 2 and 3 over 4), roulements, microtiming indicators etc. This is what it looks like to notate |b . t t|. . s .|t t s s|t t s .| (which is fine enough a notation for emails anyway)


See http://www.yankadi.silvercircle.org/yankadifont.htm for further notes, explanation, keyboard map, and download. Donations are very much appreciated but in principle it is free. If people have the font installed, you can use it on web pages as I have done, and with an extra 'font' BBCode using it on the forum should be possible too. (No idea if a font MOD exists but it shouldn't be too hard to create. Unfortunately I work with phpBB 2 only).