> Just as with standard music notation, if one is reading the ABC, if > you don't specify the sharpness, naturalness or flatness of the second > F in your example, is that F in the second bar supposed to be an > F-natural or F-sharp?
In standard notation, there is no ambiguity. The second F is assumed to be sharp, as a rule. I can't imagine anyone but a complete novice playing it otherwise. ========== Well, I know a lot of complete novices at music notation who use ABC. And that was my point. But I agree that the standard I have always known is that the tied F# in the second measure is an F#, not an F-natural. But knowing novices, I also know that I hear questions about it. But that just gives one the opportunity to educate the novice. ;-) ========= In abc, there is even less ambiguity, because ties and slurs have distinct syntaxes. ^F-|=F is utter nonsense (according to the draft standard), and should be written as (^F|=F) instead. And if ^F-|=F is nonsense, then it is equally nonsensical for abc software to interpret ^F-|F that way. If we are going to start requiring that abc notation make the second sharp in this example explicit, then we should require that *every* accidental be made explicit, for the sake of consistency. But this seems silly to me. abc was clearly designed to mimic standard notation to a large extent, so it already follows many of the same rules (such as accidentals lasting to the next barline). To follow some rules and ignore others will only lead to confusion. Another problem is that if we required this example always to be written as ^F-|^F, typesetting software would by default have to omit the second sharp in order to conform to conventional notation. But you run into a problem if you want to force the second sharp to be displayed. ^F-|^F won't do it. ========= Agreed. Rick To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
