And about time, too

There have been too many juxtapositions for me to keep track of during the last few weeks, and in my husband's opinion I should only write about one thing at once. Well then, one of the things with which I've been preoccupied—apart from the compilation of ideas for further editions of Crosswinds for the flying club, our constant financial calculations in view of the imminent end to Chris' employment at Nortel with no foreseeable compensation (I even attended a webinar about this), my Spanish conversations on Tuesdays, French on Wednesdays, German on Thursdays, and the remarkably bright, high pressure weather that's had me out gardening in a "feels like" temperature of minus 20—is a computerised transcription of some sheet music, using the abc Music Standard, created by Chris Walshaw, player of pipes and whistles in the Climax Ceilidh Band.

My Uncle Frank (aka Francis Bishop, Gordon Bishop, Francis Gordon Bishop or "Concordia"), of whom we were all very fond and who died last summer aged 93, composed, improvised, taught and performed on the piano and organ for most of his life. When I was visiting my mother in England last month his wife Ruth posted her some of his "pop songs" (as she calls them) and piano pieces, all in hand-written form. Neat though her brother's writing was, my mother has a hard time reading these manuscripts, so I offered to try to make them more legible once I got back to Canada. It is turning out to be a very long job, but rewarding. I feel I'm getting to know my uncle better; the exercise certainly brings him to life again for me.

For the music in this illustration, for example (click to expand), the following computer program notates the treble clef line of the piano part:

V: 2 clef=treble
(c =B>c) | % 1
(_B A>B) |
G E (F |
G _B)(>A |
[G,CEG] [G,CE] [G,C]) | % 5
([A,CD] [A,CE] [A,CDF] |
[E3G3]) | z [=B,2D2] |
(c =B>c) |
(_B A>B) |
(G [G,CE] [CEG] | % 10
[A,_CEFA] F>A) |
[B,EGB] [B,EG] E |
(_c2 F |
[D3B3]) |
[_A,B,DF] {B}b B, ||
V: 3 clef=treble
!mf!z [E2G2] |
z [D2F2] |
z [G,2C2] |
[=B,D] [=B,DF] [B,DF] |
!mp!x3 |
!crescendo(!x3 |
(D C/2_C/2 B,/2=A,/2!crescendo)!) |
!diminuendo(!(_A,2 G,)!diminuendo)! |
!mf!z [E2G2] |
z [D2=F2] |
x3 |
x [A,CE] [CE] |
!crescendo(!x3!crescendo)! |
!f!z [_C2E2] |
!diminuendo(!G2 _G |
x!diminuendo)! x2 ||

and then some open-source software known as abcm2ps generates a postscript file, such as the one that gave me my page of music above.

Our guitarist friend John says that LilyPond might be a better notation system for me to try, but I don't know whether I want to make the effort the switch would entail. I have a folder full of my father's music manuscripts to transcribe as well.