Tunebook question

Maybe someone can help me or maybe this just can’t be done. I’d like to print out about the first 40 pages or so of the Popular Tunes list here on the session. Other than a page at a time does anybody know how to do this?

Just to clarify… do you mean you want to create a tunebook of the top 40 (or so) tunes. You are aware of the option of creating a tunebook (add to tunebook feature) - and this tunebook can be downloaded as ABC. The only problem with exporting the tunebook thus is that you get an ABC file with all the variations (settings) to each tune. Which is confusing.

Plan B is to Use something like EasyABC to create a curated booklet. Ctrl-click on each of the tunes to open in a new tab. Pick WHICH (one) setting for a given tune you prefer. Copy/Paste the ABC into the EasyABC book. Rinse, wash, repeat. Now you have your own ABC book with all the tunes you want . Export (print the book) to paper or PDF.

gbyrne, all I want is to make a list of the, lets’ say, the top 300 tunes played by session members not an actual book of tunes. Thanks for you response it has given me an idea or two.

You can change the per-page number of tunes in the tunes display, up to 50: https://thesession.org/tunes/popular?perpage=50 It’s still a page at a time, but only 6 pages to get 300 tune names.

With some scripting, you could use the API (https://thesession.org/api) to assemble a list of 300 or more as desired, but that might be overkill for your needs.

Ross, here’s a little jsfiddle that pulls the first 400 tunes from the “popular” list, using the API https://jsfiddle.net/06Lkfrto/4/

Just load the page and hit “Run” at the top. It takes it a minute to fetch the first 8 pages of 50, and then outputs the tune list with links in the lower right corner.

Enjoy!

And actually, jsfiddle runs it for you when you load the page. So just load that URL and in about 10 seconds, it will display the top 400 “popular” tunes from thesession.

Thanks Rev and Ben. Most useful.

I actually have a different question. One time I was trying to assemble a list of tunes playable for a contra dance I was playing at so I could send it to the other fiddler to choose from. These were all tunes that I play. But I had to clear a bunch of great tunes from my book in order to use only tunes that fit these criteria. I think it would be nice if you could make subsections of your tunebook for whatever purpose. So you could have all your tunes in the book, but also be able to create smaller collections within those tunes for contra or by number of parts, etc. Is there any way at present to accomplish something like this?

I have downloaded the raw data from the session and used the number of tunebooks to which a tune has been added as a proxy for “popularity”. That methodology has allowed me to generate a number of “top” lists including by type etc.

@danilel parker - no you can’t manage multiple tunebooks or subsections via the features on the site. I’ve decided to us offline tools (EasyABC mostly) to build ABC files of books of tunes for various purposes and from these can generate any PDF scores etc. I think keeping your own books in the form of text ABC files is probably the best option.

I once filled out a small manuscript book with about 800 tunes in alphabetical order, just the first 2 bars of each part of the tune. I guess that people just use their smartphones to access thesession now.
The paper version does have its advantages though…..you can write a couple of variations on the same stave and the whole thing is faster to access….I have raced against someone using a smartphone and won b a few milliseconds.

@crackedfluteplayer - the best way to keep a book(let) is to edit your own ABC text files and use EasyABC to generate “INCIPTS” .. which is exactly like you describe a list of tunes with just the first 2/3 or 4 bars (you pick how many).

If you’re careful with how you put it together you can get 20 tunes per page (10 rows, 2 cols) - or your entire 800 tunes on 10 sheets of paper if you print (and can read) 2-pages per A4 sheet double sided rotated.

If you group sets using one of the header fields as a marker (and sort by same) you can have nice incipits (or hints) in “set format”. The header field trick is to use a field such as G: (technically for “group” info - whatever that is). So I’d include a field in the header of each tune in a set such as

Tune 1…
G: JIG.01.1/3

Tune 2…
G: JIG.01.2/3

Tune 3…
G: JIG.01.3/3

Now, how you label/code sets might depend on whether you (often) mix types in a set or not. And you can fix the header file output to include the set code above if that is helpful.

gbyrne, That is a great idea, I am definitely going to do that. I still like the paper version for my own use.
It is a little frowned upon to sit in a session with a wad of paper on your lap but I check the notebook if someone asks me or if I really cant remember how a tune starts. Thanks