> I've googled "Tonic Sol Fa" and looked at a number of the sites that > aren't about the shlocky group by that name. I'd say that it isn't > ready for prime time on the Web. True, a lot of people seem to be > familiar with it. But of the songs that I found (and there weren't > many), there was very little consistency in the notation, and one > would have to put out a huge effort to write code that could make > sense of it. We have problems with inconsistent abc, but abc is a > paragon of standardization in comparison with tonic sol fa.
That's not true of the notation as used in the UK. It all derives from one source, Curwen's original texts, and uses it with no variation whatever that I've noticed. Much more standardized than either ABC or staff notation. It's still the most commonly used notation for Gaelic singers. I don't think trying to parse it makes much sense - it would have to be OCR'd, as I doubt any two typesetters represent it the same way on a computer or even keep their transcriptions on file. But generating it is a whole lot easier, and there would be a market for the result. The way I write ABC (with the beats aligned vertically in parallel phrases or parallel simultaneous voices) is motivated by the same sort of readability concerns as sol-fa layout; horizontal space represents elapsed time (mostly). I don't find sol-fa any easier to read than ABC if both are laid out with equal care. But I don't expect to persuade the Mod of that. I just came across another kind of sol-fa yesterday, in a Belgian songbook from the 1940s. Notes designated by numbers. I've no idea if anyone still uses that. =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
