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Originally posted by Johnbow

Brian, you’ve inspired me to create a similar page of notated first lines. I assume you’re using standard notation. May I ask what sort of staff paper you are using? Most commercially available blank staff paper contains 12 or so lines, so even my paltry 70 tunes, and using both sides of the page, would still use three pages. Have you custom-made your own staff paper, or am I off on the wrong track here?

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I wouldn't call it the wrong track. But I'm in the digital world these days and use MuseScore for creating scores. It's a very good free program, but there is a learning curve. Here's a link to my tune starts:

fiddletunes.net/ First Bars.

I have that list, which is alphabetical, and I have a list on the site that shows tunes in the order I add them.

It occurs to me you could use something like MuseScore for just printing out blank sheets that you could hand notate on. That would be easy and you could make the the size you wanted.

Oh yes, of course. I don’t have any such software. I may look in to MuseScore. I wonder if Garage Band supports notation and printing, etc - probably not.

I like your sheet, it would certainly do the trick. I may even be able to do with less info than a complete line, like lead-in notes plus the first measure or two.

My current set-up is to consult the source recording, whether an mp3, YT link or most often, a recording on my phone’s recorder app. As I don’t play with others, it’s not a problem to do that. However, what I don’t like is if the source recording is tuned differently than 440 as it can mess with my initial pitch, though ultimately not much of a problem.

Awhile back on thesession.org, there was mention of a fiddler who had compiled over decades an aural catalogue of all the tunes he knew, or learned, on cassette tape - I believe he was transferring these to an on-line site, which was the occasion of his being mentioned. He would go over all his catalogued tunes once a year, apparently. Well, I got inspired, and began to compile my own catalogue, in a digital file-folder on my laptop. I just took a quick look, and I've only got about 75 there so far - and most of those are tunes I don't really need a reminder for. It's kind of time consuming.

I have a list of titles in my digital files, but I seem to have lost interest in the main list after two or three hundred (I have some themed sub-lists for different types of gigs). And the further I go, the more tunes have generic names such as, "Trad. reel #6" - which isn't much of a help ... !

Back in the pen-and-paper days, I don't think it ever occurred to me to make a list - I probably didn't know that many tunes, anyway. And for many years, I've regarded it as a sort of worthwhile mental discipline to force myself to dredge tunes out of my memory, sans aide de memoire. But more often these days, I find that's a losing proposition .....

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Originally posted by Johnbow

Oh yes, of course. I don’t have any such software. I may look in to MuseScore. I wonder if Garage Band supports notation and printing, etc - probably not.

I like your sheet, it would certainly do the trick. I may even be able to do with less info than a complete line, like lead-in notes plus the first measure or two.

My current set-up is to consult the source recording, whether an mp3, YT link or most often, a recording on my phone’s recorder app. As I don’t play with others, it’s not a problem to do that. However, what I don’t like is if the source recording is tuned differently than 440 as it can mess with my initial pitch, though ultimately not much of a problem.

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Funny enough this is almost exactly what pushed me into building my little tune notebook tool.

I realized I had phone recordings, YT links, random notes, tune names, tunings and source recordings all living in different places and it got chaotic.

So now I mostly just keep them connected in one place and use the inline recordings imbedded in my tunelist as memory triggers more than anything. I even made a recorder directly in the app so you can record you playing it and have it immediately available in your tunelist for jogging your memory. 

Happy to share if it sounds useful but I’m mostly enjoying reading everybody’s systems and how they've found solutions. 

Tunelist.app 

Then beta code is 5miles

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Originally posted by DougD

Like pmiller510, my tunelists are on sheets of paper in instrument cases, notebooks, and other scraps. Usually organized by key (I only rarely crosstune) and often made for a specific purpose or event. The rest are still in my head (hopefully). I don't really need more because I don't attend scheduled jam sessions like a lot of people do today. I've been in lots of jams, but they were informal sessions with friends old or new. Tunes and songs are started by somebody who knows them, and everybody else joins in as best they can. No leaders, and especially no dictators.
I guess my musical life has always been somewhat disorganized, although interesting, at least to me. Johnbow mentioned Joe Birchfield's version of "Sally Ann." I recorded that in my living room, about 45 years ago now. I recently came across it on YouTube, digitized by someone from the original LP, and just added it to the video library here. I never was tempted to transcribe it, and in fact have never even tried to play it. I just enjoyed him playing it. There are a couple tunes on my music page here of Joe playing with me playing banjo, recorded around his kitchen table. "Lost John" and "Boil Them Cabbage Down" would not be on my tunelist - I was just trying to follow him. Years ago the Hilltoppers and I were all at some kind of outdoor event in several fields separated by narrow paths. Joe and I approached each other on one from opposite directions and he threw up his arm and said "There's my old friend!" which meant a lot to me. Still does.
Memories like that are what I treasure - doesn' really matter how many tunes I know.
Sorry if I've drifted a bit.

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Thank you for drifting. Your story and memories reminded me of why I love traditional music and the community. 

I use Notability- a pretty versatile app that syncs across devices. It lets me import the dots, annotate them using a drawing tool, paste in links, upload mp3s or record on the spot, and drag to categories like "want to learn" or "needs work". As part of the title text I include some ABC text for the first measure or 2 for quick reference.

I also keep a Google sheet of learned tunes by name, shared with a couple friends who list their tunes as well so we can see what we have in common.

Steven I checked out your tunelist app-- pretty neat, and it even lets you upload a .csv file. I didn't see a way to find or interact with other users but maybe that's in the works. I think I will stick with what I'm using but it's fun to see all the app solutions folks are coming up with recently. Thanks for sharing it.

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Originally posted by JonD

I use Notability- a pretty versatile app that syncs across devices. It lets me import the dots, annotate them using a drawing tool, paste in links, upload mp3s or record on the spot, and drag to categories like "want to learn" or "needs work". As part of the title text I include some ABC text for the first measure or 2 for quick reference.

I also keep a Google sheet of learned tunes by name, shared with a couple friends who list their tunes as well so we can see what we have in common.

Steven I checked out your tunelist app-- pretty neat, and it even lets you upload a .csv file. I didn't see a way to find or interact with other users but maybe that's in the works. I think I will stick with what I'm using but it's fun to see all the app solutions folks are coming up with recently. Thanks for sharing it.

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Thanks for checking it out and for the thoughtful feedback and honestly I may not have communicated this part very well in the app yet.

Your setup actually sounds surprisingly close to one of the reasons I started building the tunelist app in the first place. Besides trying to organize the insanely growing number of recordings and references, I kept wanting buckets for tunes I was learning, could confidently lead, wanted to learn, half remembered, etc. and eventually ended up with too many notes, recordings and spreadsheets living in different places and wanted one app for my whole fiddle and banjo life.

The shared Google Sheet part especially is similar to one of the things I added shared jam lists where people can invite others into a common working tune list, or a gig set list for band members  and everyone can attach their own recordings, references, or versions of tunes to that shared space instead of maintaining separate documents.

That mostly came from a weekly jam here where newcomers wanted a way to see repertoire and longtime players wanted a quick way to jog their memory on how a tune was usually played.

That said, I really like your Notability setup, especially the annotations and the first measure idea. It’s cool seeing how many people ended up solving similar problems in completely different ways.

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Originally posted by Johnbow

Brian, you’ve inspired me to create a similar page of notated first lines. I assume you’re using standard notation. May I ask what sort of staff paper you are using? Most commercially available blank staff paper contains 12 or so lines, so even my paltry 70 tunes, and using both sides of the page, would still use three pages. Have you custom-made your own staff paper, or am I off on the wrong track here?

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I bought a couple of spiral notebooks that had the staff printed already.  One dozen staffs per page.  I mostly put one tune per page using every other staff.  I skip staffs to leave room for edits and notes and just to unclutter the page.  That seldom leaves me crowding the bottom of the page.  I like to mark the notes a little heavier and fatter so I've started to use a felt tip calligraphy marker. The process ensures that I really have worked out the notes to my satisfaction and gives me a very clear text for when I: a. Am wearing the wrong glasses.  b. Am wearing the right glasses  c. Am not wearing glasses at all.  d. Am too close to the page.  e.  Am too far from the page.  f.  Am too damn fussy.

I trim the hanging chad (never thought I'd have use for THAT phrase) with scissors and I use those transparent 3-ring liner sleeves to hold the sheets in the binder.  Easy to run off a copy or two right through the liner sleeve for a friend and they are somewhat weather proof.   I set them up to load pages from the bottom rather than the top.

Boxbow - Yes, that’s a good set-up you have. I love the idea of the felt-tip calligraphy marker - makes the marks in just the right way, I need one of those. It’s great to look at the manuscripts of early composers using similar equipment (perhaps not felt tipped), Bach comes to mind.

The thing I’m whining most about is the need for a quick memory jolt and for that a measure or so ought to do it.

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Originally posted by Johnbow

Boxbow - Yes, that’s a good set-up you have. I love the idea of the felt-tip calligraphy marker - makes the marks in just the right way, I need one of those. It’s great to look at the manuscripts of early composers using similar equipment (perhaps not felt tipped), Bach comes to mind.

The thing I’m whining most about is the need for a quick memory jolt and for that a measure or so ought to do it.

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Bach.  Yeah.  That's me, all right.  The guy with a bottle of whiteout in hand.

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Originally posted by boxbow

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Originally posted by Johnbow

Boxbow - Yes, that’s a good set-up you have. I love the idea of the felt-tip calligraphy marker - makes the marks in just the right way, I need one of those. It’s great to look at the manuscripts of early composers using similar equipment (perhaps not felt tipped), Bach comes to mind.

The thing I’m whining most about is the need for a quick memory jolt and for that a measure or so ought to do it.

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Bach.  Yeah.  That's me, all right.  The guy with a bottle of whiteout in hand.

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Now you have something to work towards. :)

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but standard musical notation is almost amazingly straightforward and easy to read when it comes to Old Time tunes and the fiddle in general. You only have to hit one or at the most two notes at a time so there's no problem with chords or accompaniments . When you are sticking to first position it's even easier.