While the great chord debate rages on, I thought I'd toss out what
I've implemented in my abc2ps clone for handling more kinds of
endings and repeats than the rather limited ABC 1.6 allows.
This isn't a solution to all the world's repeat problems. It is
merely something that is 1) very easy to implement and 2) covers 90%
of what is needed.
The current standard only allows first and second endings. It uses [1
and [2, where the [ may be omitted after a |, and there may be a :
before or after a |. The abbreviation :: may be used for :|:, i.e., a
combined end-repeat and start-repeat in the middle of a staff.
The limitations here are that only twice-through repeats are possible
using either of the notations:
|: ... :|
|: ... |[1 ... :|[2 ... ||
What I propose is that the new standard allow:
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1. An alternate ending is indicated by [ immediately followed by a
string of digits, hyphens and commas. If the [ follows a bar line, it
may be omitted. It is expected that these define a sequence 1..N, in
the same fashion as standard music notation, to indicate playing the
phrase N times with two or more different endings..
2. Multiple colons may be used before or after bar lines to mark the
ends of repeated sections. These are used to indicate multiple times
through the passage, one extra time per colon. If the multi--ending
syntax is used, the extra colons may be omitted at the beginning of
the phrase (to go along with conventional music notation). Multiple
colons may be used to indicate multiple repeats without differences
in the endings.
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The new standard might also include the statement that endings need
not start at bar lines; i.e., it is legal to use [ to indicate an
ending that is a partial measure. This is legal with the old
standard, of course, but it often doesn't work, because implementors
aren't familiar with the usage.
Some examples of repeated phrases, where ... stands for the notes:
A phrase played three times:
|:: ... ::|
A phrase played four times, with alternating endings:
|: ... | ... |1,3 ... :|2,4 ... :|
|::: ... | ... |1,3 ... :|2,4 ... :|
|: ... | ... |[1,3 ... :|[2,4 ... :|
|::: ... | ... |[1,3 ... :|[2,4 ... :|
These are equivalent. The extra colons are useful for readability,
but aren't needed because the 1,3 and 2,4 give the same information.
A phrase played four times, with three different endings:
|: ... | ... |1,3 ... :|2 ... :|4 ... ||
A phrase played four times, with a different ending the fourth time:
|::: ... | ... |[1-3 ... ::|[4 ... ||
The extra colons may be omitted with no loss of meaning.
A phrase played three times with partial-measure endings:
|: ... | ... | ... [1 ... :[2 ... :[3 ... ||
Many musicians are not familiar with the multi-colon notation. But
dance musicians usually know it very well, and like it because it
makes the music easier to read. It's another "standard" that is not
implemented by all ABC software due to lack of familiarity.
I'd rather not see this degenerate into a discussion of how to notate
all the possible repeat patterns. Granted, this isn't a completely
general solution to all the world's problems. But it's something that
handles most of the common repeat patterns, and can be implemented
very quickly. Then we can discuss how best to handle all the
remaining cases.
I have a growing number of tunes in my collection that use these
extensions ...
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