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Ru Temple Design Studio
Sun. Nov. 3, 2002
Music
Fiddle, of course!
abc notation
ABC notation was invented in the late 80s as an attempt to answer the design question "how do I send this fiddle tune over Usenet, using the simple ascii character set?" It went open source in the early 90s and has, as you may imagine, evolved. The pal who introduced me to the concept went on to touch-type a movement of one of Beethoven's symphonies, "just because he could..." at that point.This link to Chris Walshaw's page will get you all the background and tutorial information you could possibly want, free players for whatever platform you're on, a duly registered MIME-type and handler for same to plug into your browser, and a small but growing pile o' tunes that I'll be adding to!
JC's tune finder; is the most comprehensive index and catalog of abc tunes around the world.
Tunes I've Written
3-legged dog:
Well, y'see, I played this gig with Swords of Gridlock on September 14, 2002, for the lovely Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.
Unfortunately I got jostled on the way into the building, and the fiddle case *dropped.*
Fortunately, the soundpost and bridge were fine.
Unfortunately, the strings all sagged out of tune, and as I re-tuned them (five minutes before stagecall) the E-string broke. (ping!)
Unfortunately, I didn't have extra strings with me.
Fortunately it occurred to me to joke that three legged dogs get by... and as it happened it was a pretty simple matter to play the entire hour set on the three strings I had -- thus meaning I owed a debt of gratitude not only to my stalwart dancing friends, but to Universe, a tune called the Three-legged Dog. It came through a little over a month later, on 10-24-2002.
Here's the abc-notation and here's a PDF of it to print, here it is as a tif fimage, and here's a midi file saved from BarFly - I don't have a midi player and would appreciate feedback comments to tunes (at) this domain - thank you in advance!
Dance
Lise M. Dyckman is an accomplished caller for contra dances and English Country Dance; Here are some of the dances she has written.
ECD, Morris. Until I get something written myself, go peek at the lovely website for the Bay Area Country Dance Society
These pages are a work in continual progress. Created 6/1/2002, most recently updated 12/11/2002.
Update: tune 3-legged dog, 10-25-02.
