> Some time ago, the syntax Zn was suggested for n bars of rest. > I know that abcm2ps now implements this, and I'd like to know: > > 1. What other programs implement this ? > > 2. Are there programs where this usage would create a conflict ? > (I'm thinking of the reserved characters H-Z here).
One slight problem is that we have other extensions of the rest idea: "x" for non-printing rests and "y" for horizontal space. BarFly started this but I think other programs use them too. "X" for a whole bar of non-printing rest could be almost as useful as your proposed "Z", but it's something else to check for conflicts. (The way BarFly uses "y" and does note spacing, a "Y" for a bar of horizontal space wouldn't give well-defined output, but maybe some other program might have a use for it). So you could expect to have at least one and maybe two other letters to check for conflicts. I can't envisage any myself, though. Example of where you might want multiple-bar non-printing rests: I recently tried to represent a song where the verse was monophonic and the chorus was in three or four parts (a common parlour trick in 19th century Scotland). BarFly doesn't let you switch the number of voices in mid-tune, and I suspect it would be hard to add that functionality. You could do it by writing the verse music out multiple times, which is redundant. If you were merging the voices on to a single staff line, and you used ordinary rests, they'd print rests all over the melody. Non-printing rests are the way to go, and you wouldn't need to write as many of them if you had a multiple-bar non-printing-rest construct. That example is a place where we could do better if the ABC spec was better defined. In my intuition, a part boundary is one place where a change of voicing ought to be allowed. But the relationship between parts and voices is not pinned down anywhere that I know of. (There's one example I can think of where a composition has different numbers of parts in different voices - a string quartet by Elliott Carter, the fourth I think, with 6 movements for two of the instruments and 4 for the others - but stuff like that is too exotic to bother with). There should perhaps be an even larger-scale kind of rest, a way to silence an instrument for a whole part. This is routine in orchestral music. There's another way to represent the multiple-bar rests you want that has more general application: a length modifier that would allow you to extend any note or chord over multiple bars. Say [c/e/g/]&5 for 5 bars of c triads half the default notelength long, with & being the "do this for a whole bar" sign. Then z&8 for 8 bars of rest is just another special case. =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
