Jack Campin wrote: | > ... 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.
Does anyone have the URL for a spec (or user's guide or whatever)? My search didn't turn up one. Close, in the form of some online teaching docs, but digging the details of the notation out of those would be a lot of work. It looks like a fairly short doc oughta handle most of the notation. | 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 do a lot of the same sort of aligning. Reading "garbage" abc that is all scrunched up is really annoying. Of course, a lot of it comes about because people are using GUI tools, and they're not aware of how bad their abc is. Sorta like all the "garbage" html that you see these days. But then, I'm one of the crowd that reads abc itself, and I like it to be readable. I'd expect most instrumentalists would find abc somewhat more readable, since sol-fa requires the extra step of mapping from scale-relative notes to absolute notes. I've played a chromatic accordion for a couple of decades, so I'm used to doing this translation (though usually in the other direction). I also have a collection of pennywhistles of different sizes, and they encourage you to internalize the same sort of relative->absolute pitch mapping. I wonder how many instrumentalists would find tonic sol-fa easier to read than abc? Assuming well-formatted text in both cases, of course. But this is probably not terribly significant, since TSF is clearly aimed primarily at singers. BTW, in the few TSF songs I found online, I noticed that the use of apostrophes and commas to indicate octave is essentially the same as in ABC. I'd guess that this isn't coincidence, and that Chris Walshaw is familiar with TSF. OTOH, it's a fairly obvious visual metaphor. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
