Hello, there is no reason to reject ::| and :::| notation as far as I see.
Additive complementary constructs (intriguing to me) could be: :<"text">| and :<numeral>| the <"text"> construct would allow to specify freely any text that gives information on the number of repeats. examples: :"repeat this bit as often as you feel like"| :"3 times"| :"(3x)"| :"add one repeatation every time through"| by chance existing programs may accept this '"text"' like any other text in quotes, and only those who have such a feature implemented will recognize a '"text"' within the repeat sign as being a special text for describing the number of repeatations. In extention to this clever playback programms eventually could filter through the :'"text"'| and search for numerals and even numbers in words and use these for playback. in the :<numeral>| construct the <numeral> gives the number of repeats, which easily could be interpreted by playback *and* display programs, to do whatever they are programmed to in such a case. examples: :2| % equals :| :3| % play section three times :5| % play section five times As a final extention-extention :<numeral><"text">| could be allowed where the numeral defines the number of repeats for playback and the '"text"' is displayed. This may be usefull if the '"text"' does *not* contain computer-readable information, and the transcriber wants to suggest that the section should be repeated by the playback program three or maybe nine times exemplarily. One nice things with these constructions, which could be used paralell to the ':::|' construct , is that they do allow a very user/transcriber orientated approach with very little limitations, as the number of repeats can be choosen free, and alternatively a text which can be identified by programs as repeat-related can be added to extend the possibilities further out. I think such a solution would end discussions on this topic for a long time. Simon Wascher John Chambers wrote: > Jack Campin writes: > | >> Something I've also implemented is the conventional |:: ... ::| > | >> notation that says "three times through". > ... > | In music I've seen that uses this construct, it's represented by > | printing "(3x)" above the staff. A staff-notation generator could > | do whatever it liked with "|:: ... ::|", but I suspect that most > | non-Scandiwegian users would be happier with some such explicit > | representation using honest-to-god numerals. > > Yeah; I've seen that, too. OTOH, I've seen the |::: ... :::| notation > used a fair amount in music from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and > even musicians who claim not to have seen the notation before always > seem to know what it means without explanation. I don't thing I've > ever seen it used for more than 3 repeats (four times through). It > would get difficult to count. > > One problem with using "(3x)" is that this looks a lot like a strange > chord symbol to software. Maybe it should be "^(3x)". > > | Does any system of notation have a sign for "repeat this bit as often > | as you feel like"? The definitive use of that is in Terry Riley's > | "In C", but it occurs implicitly in quite a few genres. > > In fact, this happens in Scandinavian and German folk dance. It's > usually tied in with a dance that has two different steps that match > the music (e.g., zwiefacher). There are some tunes that are often > played with irregular repeats, to see if the dancers can handle it. A > slightly simpler version, for non-expert dancers, would do something > like an arithmetic progression, playing the phrase N times in the Nth > time through the dance, or something like that. > > All the notation I've seen for this has been idiosyncratic. And often > in German or Swedish or Finnish. > > Some years back, Scientific American published the "Telnet Song" that > had nested for-loops as the repeat indicators. It was a cute song > that described the escape sequences required to back out gracefully > from a chain of telnet connections without leaving any dangling > connections alive on any of the machines. -- Simon Wascher - Vienna, Austria http://members.chello.at/simon.wascher/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
