Notation in Irish Music Part 1: Why we should scrap the ABC Method!

In this blog, I provide some of my thoughts on the ABC Method of learning music, and why we should abandon it.

The Aural Method

For centuries, students have been taught Irish traditional music (and folk music in general) through aural learning. A student (more often a group of students), would sit and listen to a teacher perform a small excerpt of a tune and the student(s) would play back what they had just heard and repeat this process for each excerpt until they know the entire tune. For people who are unable to read music, this has been the normal approach to their learning. Many still believe that this method, of repetitiously plodding through a tune one small excerpt at a time, is perfect the way it is and can’t be improved upon. There are even some teachers of traditional music who have never bothered with music theory because they believe the theory itself is untraditional. Others use some version of the ABC method of writing music for their students, admitting that some form of notation is necessary, and posing the obvious question: why not go all the way and learn to read music properly?

In this series of blogs I wish to challenge these outdated objections to music theory by demonstrating the benefits of learning to read music and the disadvantages or relying solely on the aural only method. Although there are obvious limitations to standard notation, it is important to recognise that by combining the aural skills of learning by ear with the theory skills of learning by sight, any student will learn a tune more easily and much faster. They will also emerge a far more skilled and knowledgeable musician by being able to write, compose and arrange their own tunes, making them as complex or as simple as they wish. Of course, it is possible to learn Irish traditional music without learning how to read music, but it is usually much slower and can actually be more difficult to do.

The ABC Method

Until recently, most traditional musicians did not use any method of notation whatsoever. They just learnt a tune by ear. However, most traditional musicians now use some form of the ABC method. This method uses letters, sometimes with numbers, to indicate how high or low the notes are (the pitch) and how long or short these notes are (the value). Here's an example of a famous tune called The Kesh Jig:

Although most Irish traditional musicians have finally accepted the idea that a written version of the music is very beneficial, the ABC Method is a lazy, messy and clumsy method to represent a tune.

Firstly, the ABC method is nowhere near as detailed as standard notation. Using the ABC method makes it harder to locate melodic patterns, rhythmic patterns and phrasing. It also makes it far more difficult to know the time signature and key signature, or know where to add particular articulations or ornaments like rolls, triplets, crans or identify possible variations. Accidentals, time signatures, and markings for articulation and ornaments are usually absent in the ABC method.

Secondly, different teachers use different versions of the ABC method. This means that the ABC method lacks any universality and you may have to learn several (perhaps many more) versions of the ABC method if you have more than one teacher, or you change teachers, or you come across and different versions of the method. As a result, there are too many versions of ABC notation: capitals & lowercase, capitals & underlined capitals, capitals & apostrophes, lowercase & apostrophes, lowercase and underlined lowercase (and all of these can be with or without numbers to indicate duration!) etc., etc., So the first line of The Kesh Jig in ABC format could be like any of the following four examples

|G3 GAB | A3 ABd |edd gdd | edB dBA |

|g3 gab | a3 abD | EDD GDD | EDb Dba |

|G3 GAB | A3 ABD | EDD GDD | EDB DBA|

|G3 GAB | A3 ABD’ | E’D’D’ G’D’D’ | E’D’B D’BA |

And there are many more possibilities that I' haven't included, but I think I’ve made the point.

Consequently, there is no agreement amongst traditional teachers themselves as to what version of the ABC method to adopt. If they simply adopted the standard notation system there would be no confusion at all. In my opinion, the best version of the ABC method is to have capital letters for low notes and small letters for high notes. This version is based on the standard Helmholtz system, which also has capital letters for low notes, and small letters for high notes. This system is more widely accepted than any folk variation of the ABC method, being used across many styles of music, including Classical music, and it is what you should normally see in a published tutor book.

But even the Helmholtz system doesn't answer the question: 'If you are going to read music off a page anyway using the ABC method (with all its disadvantages) or the Helmholtz system, then why not learn to read music properly in the first place?'.

The ABC method is a poor and unnecessary substitution for something that is just as easy to use, but far more useful. Using the ABC method to learn music is like trying to learn the French language using completely different characters to signify the French alphabet rather than using the standard French alphabet - it doesn't make sense and serves no purpose! After all, not only is standard notation a more accurate representation of the music, but it has so many other advantages as well. Simply put, most music teachers realize that the ABC method is too primitive and unnecessary and because of this it's almost never used in professional music education in schools, colleges and universities.

If you're interested in learning how to read music for Irish traditional music, but are unsure where to begin, check out my Tin Whistle Mini Course for just a one-time purchase of £19. No subscription fees, just pay once, and own forever!

📋 Read the next post in this series here: Part 2 The Benefits of Standard Notation for Learning Irish Music

📋 Other posts in this series:

Part 3 Challenging Outdated Beliefs in Learning Irish Music

Part 4 Why Are Certain Keys Used in Irish Music?

Categories: : Irish Traditional Music