Second demo CD for VAMP, an ABC to MIDI converter for contra (and square) dance music Stan Swanson, 18 June 2004 - 23 July 2004 contra1 at bcsdancing.org http://bcscontra.org/vamp.html Contents of the Audio part of the CD (should be playable with a standard CD player or a computer) In the 15 tracks below, various schemes for delineating phrasing and supplying variety are illustrated. Altering the number of dance repetitions is a matter of a few changes to the input files. Dominion Reel midi input Melody without repeats ( A B not AA BB) to illustrate chord accents: even (no hypermeter), boomchuck with basic vamp, 8th offbeat silent to simulate breath pause, silent, dulcimer on even phrases, cadence. Six times with clarinet, piano, dulcimer. Dominion Reel midi input Five repeats with clarinet, piano. Chord variations: silent, basic vamp, vamp with breathing pause, some half measure chords, cadence. Miss Thompson's (from Fiddler's Dream) midi input Four times thru, clarinet and fiddle on melody (alternate phrases), piano with boomchuck, bass on unisons only. Alternates half measure chords with those whose root note matches measure. Old Favorite (Fiddler's Dream) midi input Two repeats. Recorder on odd phrases, sax on even. Piano on backup with more varied chords the first time thru. Shenandoah Falls (Fiddler's Dream) midi input Three repeats. Recorder on melody, guitar on backup for last two repeats (unisons only, then boomchuck). Lilting Banshee (Fiddler's Dream) midi input An experiment with bagpipe drones. Four repeats. Melody on clarinet, violin, fiddle(a different sound sample), bagpipe. Measure long drones on bagpipe on repeats 2-4. Backup on guitar (silent on second repeat). Pop Goes the Weasel (jig) midi input This familiar children's song is a jig and has a dance associated with it. Two repetitions on recorder and piano. Durang's hornpipe midi input Four repetitions, played on fiddle (melody) and piano (backup), with a dulcimer playing the accented notes (every other sixteenth note: 1, 3 ,5, 7, ... played as eighth notes) in the melody during the second and third repetitions. New Bedford reel midi input Four times through. Melody on recorder, backup on banjo. High notes on banjo sound "tinny", so perhaps a different choice needs to be made. Chord choices change each repetition. Fisher's hornpipe midi input Four times. Clarinet (melody), piano (chords), dulcimer (accented notes). Maggie Brown's Favorite (jig) midi input Three times. Melody is played on different instruments for alternate phrases: fiddle on 1,3,5,7 and piano on 2,4,6,8. Nylon guitar on backup. Hull's Victory hornpipe midi input Four times. Melody instrument changes from fiddle to clarinet, then fiddle doubles on the even phrases in repetition 3, both play in last time. Backup on piano with some chord changes. Lamplighter's hornpipe midi input Two times. Clarinet and fiddle alternate phrases for melody. Piano backup. Dundee (hornpipe) midi input Three times. Melodic lead on recorder, backup on piano. Dulcimer accents even phrases the first time, banjo the second time through. Only recorder and piano play the last time. President Garfield's -- hornpipe midi input This is almost of full contra dance length (10 repetitions) and has been used to call a dance for a small group. Played on clarinet (melody) and piano (backup). The variation is principally in how the chords are played and to some extent in which chords are chosen. An extra phrase has been added after the tenth repetition for a partner swing at the end of the dance. Most the tunes appear in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1882), and are accessible in the Mel Bay facsimile edition (1995), edited by Patrick Sky. Harmonies (backup chords) have been "computed" by VAMP. Miss Thompson's, Old Favorite, Shenandoah Falls, and Lilting Banshee come from the Fiddler's Dream Contra Camp, Jan 2004, hosted by the NTTDS and are believed to be traditional or public domain. You may decide that the sounds do not correspond to the instruments claimed. The capturing of realistic samples for some instruments, especially bowed strings (e.g. fiddle), turns out to be hard.