Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread NICKL Kroly

Bruce Olson wrote:

 It's fairly easy to put grace notes after the note from which they get
 their time duration, but such are so rare that it didn't seem to me to
 be worth the effort.


Hungarian folk songs use grace notes after a main note very often, but
you will find them also in Bach's concertos.

Rgds.

Kroly Nickl

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[abcusers] Brighton session

2001-02-08 Thread Laurie Griffiths

The ABC content is tangential, and this applies only to
the UK, but the following appeared on Fiddle_L yesterday:
Laurie.

Date:Tue, 6 Feb 2001 19:45:41 -
From:Ben Paley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Your duty is clear.

They'll do it if we let them!
Brighton's longest-running Irish session is going to be cancelled by the pub
unless more people start turning up.
Venue: The Royal Oak, St James' Street, Brighton
Time: 9:00pm every Friday (... we hope)
I know you'll all do the decent thing.


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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread Phil Taylor

Bruce Olsen wrote:

It's fairly easy to put grace notes after the note from which they get
their time duration, but such are so rare that it didn't seem to me to
be worth the effort.

It's common in slow airs, and in the more highly-decorated vocal styles.

Here's an example.  I haven't written the slurs in here, but in each case
the gracenotes are attached to the previous note.

X:12
T:The Green Linnet
M:none
Q:1/4=100
K:AMix
(A/B/) c | d3 e f2{gfe} d e4 |
w:Cu-*ri- o- si-ty___  had led
w:Where*an em-* press___ he saw,
dc A3/ cef g2{agfg} a3{bag} |
w:a* young nat-ive of E-  rin___
w:and the robe that she was wea-ring___
ed c3 A (cd) B3{cB} A G2 A A4 :|
w:for to view the long* banks___ of the Rhine.
w:all* O-ver with* dia-___monds did shine.
ef | g2a2 ef2{gf} e3 | e (ea)gb a4 |
w:No* god-dess in splen__dour could ev_er be seen
c d3/efg e4{fed} c2 | B2{cBA} G3A A4 |
w:to eq_ual this fair___ maid, so___ mild and serene
(A/B/)c | d3 ef2{gfe} d e4 |
w:In* soft mur-mer-ing tones
dc A3/cef g2{agfg} a3{bag} |
w:Oh my lin-*net so green
edc3 Acd B3{cB} AG2 A A4 ||
w:Sweet* Bon-ey shall I neer___ see no more.


Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] Importing abc2ps output into Illustrator

2001-02-08 Thread Frank Nordberg



Michel Sikiotakis wrote:
 
 Dear all,
 
 I tried to import an eps file created with abc2ps version 1.3.3
 (ABC2PS-1.3.3.EXE) and Illustrator 8.0 replies :
 
 - The EPS parser is unable to parse this file.
 
 Any advice ?

I think that's a rather common problem with eps. It seems the format
isn't nearly as standardized as it should be.

Have you tried using ordinary ps instead of eps? Both abc2ps and
Illustrator is certainly able to handle that format as well.


Frank Nordberg
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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread James Allwright

On Thu 08 Feb 2001 at 12:35PM +0100, Frank Nordberg wrote:
 
 (Note: There shouldn't be any grace notes in this tune, of course. I
 just happened to have it handy for testing...)
 
 The results:
 
 BarFlydisplays and plays back nicely.
 abc2midi  plays back nicely
 abc2psignores the grace note
 yaps  comes up with an error message and no output at all
 

yaps seems to be handling the grace note just fine for me. The error
message is complaining about A  z. Have another look for the
output file.

James Allwright
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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread Phil Taylor

Laurie wrote:

I think the distinction between graces that steal time from the
previous note and those which steal from the following is
musically important.  I'm not 100% clear on the syntax you
are proposing for this.  If I want to do
  | G4 {A} B4 |
how do you write the two cases which would sound like
 | G2-G-G/2-G/4-G/8 A/8 B4 |
or
 | G4 A/8 B/8-B/4-B/2-B-B2 |
?

BarFly can play it either way (it's a local option, so you can't change
it in mid-tune).  As far as writing it is concerned I'd use slurs, i.e.
  | (G4 {A}) B4 |
  | G4 ({A} B4) |

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread John Chambers

Bruce Olson writes:
|
| Grace notes are automatically slured to the following note in my
| program, because you have to take the time for the graces notes from it,
| and if you don't slur them the main note sounds staccato.

Well, that's exactly why some people have objected to  the  automatic
slurring.  Detached ornaments are normal in some kinds of music. I've
heard this effect from a lot of Scottish and Irish fiddlers.  If  the
software  insists  on  adding  the  slur,  then  you can't accurately
represent the actual ornament.  You're in effect  saying  that  those
musicians are wrong, and they should play the notes slurred.  This is
a peculiar thing for software to impose.

A lot of publishers also automatically add slurs  to  all  ornaments.
The result is that musicians learn that such slurs are just noise and
are to be ignored.  You play the ornaments so they sound  right,  and
ignore  what's  on  the  paper.   But  this  is  really a case of bad
notation.  If the slur is meaningless, we're better off without it on
the page, so we can pencil it in if we like.  Even better would be to
make it mean something, so the transcriber can use it to  communicate
useful information.

| It's fairly easy to put grace notes after the note from which they get
| their time duration, but such are so rare that it didn't seem to me to
| be worth the effort.

It's certainly rare in ABC, since the software doesn't allow it.

Actually, I'd agree that it's rare in most of the music that I  play.
But  it  does  occur,  and when I've needed it, I've had to resort to
writing something like  A7/4B//c//  rather  than  the  more  readable
A2{Bc}. And, of course, when I do this, people can include my file in
a list to show that post grace notes aren't used at all.  Well, yeah;
if  you  don't  let people use the little notes, they'll write things
out with big notes, and the result will be less readable.

It's fairly standard to write software that doesn't  allow  something
and  then  say  "Well,  our  users  don't  do that, so it must not be
needed." I've heard this sort of reasoning repeatedly from all  sorts
of software developers.  I don't find it very convincing.

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Re: [abcusers] Re: looking for a tune my lagan love

2001-02-08 Thread Phil Taylor

Phil Taylor  writes:
| lynne liberts wrote:
|  i been looking for a while for a copy of 'my lagan love'
| (beautifull slow air)
| can anybody help me out with this one please
| regards to all kalle lynne
|
| It's quite a well-known song.  It's other name is 'The Fairy Mistress'.
| If you can't find it under that name mail me and I'll write out the
| tune for you.

I've added that title to my copy of the tune at
   http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/Ireland/air/MyLaganLove.abc

Do you know where that title comes from? It might be nice to get some
info about books and/or recordings that use either name. Lots of room
in the headers for such info ...

The title is the English translation of an Irish phrase in the text.
I'd write the words out, but I'd never get the spelling of the Irish
bits right.  Bloke goes for a walk, comes across a tiny cottage,
peers in through the window where he spies a tiny fairy girl singing
this tune as she stirs the fire.  Falls in love with her.

All the best tunes come from the fairies.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread Henning Kiel

On Thu, 8 Feb 2001, Phil Taylor wrote:

 Laurie wrote:
 
 are proposing for this.  If I want to do
   | G4 {A} B4 |
 how do you write the two cases which would sound like
  | G2-G-G/2-G/4-G/8 A/8 B4 |
 or
  | G4 A/8 B/8-B/4-B/2-B-B2 |
 ?
 
 BarFly can play it either way (it's a local option, so you can't change
 it in mid-tune).  As far as writing it is concerned I'd use slurs, i.e.
   | (G4 {A}) B4 |
   | G4 ({A} B4) |

How about
  | G4{A} B4 |
  | G4 {A}B4 |
???

This should be quite obvious!?


//Henning

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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread John Chambers

Laurie writes:
| ...  (Are trills more important than hammer-ons?
| Depends - which do you play more often? Flute or guitar).

Hmmm ...  To non-string players, "hammer-on" seems like a synonym for
"apoggiatura".   I'd say it's a lot more common than a trill in every
kind of music that I play.

| I think the distinction between graces that steal time from the
| previous note and those which steal from the following is
| musically important.

This is something that staff  notation  has  traditionally  not  made
clear.  The culprit is usually the publisher, who typically has rules
saying how such things are drawn, so that all cases are mapped to the
same  marks on the paper.  Some people have indicated the distinction
by drawing the grace note next to the big note that  it  steals  time
from,  with  or  without  a  slur  to that note.  But if your printer
refuses to do that, or quietly rewrites it, there's not much you  can
do. So musicians have learned that grace-note notation is meaningless
and they have to work it out from what they know of the style.

| I'm not 100% clear on the syntax you
| are proposing for this.  If I want to do
|   | G4 {A} B4 |
| how do you write the two cases which would sound like
|  | G2-G-G/2-G/4-G/8 A/8 B4 |
| or
|  | G4 A/8 B/8-B/4-B/2-B-B2 |
| ?

Well, what would probably be intuitively clear to a  lot  of  readers
would be to write things like:

   | G4 {A}B4 |
   | G4{A} B4 |
   | G4 ({A}B4) |
   | (G4{A}) B4 |
   | (G4 {A})B4 |
   | G4({A} B4) |

These would have the obvious translation to staff notation.  A player
would simply make ornaments steal time from their adjacent note.  I'd
think that most musicians  would  understand  any  of  these  without
explanation.  There's no new ABC syntax here, only a clarification of
what it means to group notes together.

Of course, there's still a need to understand the style, to determine
such  things  as  how  long  the  grace note should be, how it should
really be articulated, and so on.  But ABC's use of spaces  to  group
notes is fairly clear and obvious (though limited to a depth of one).

We might suggest that people start using such notation right now,  to
notate  their  favorite  airs for example.  Then we can challenge the
programmers to do the Right Thing with them.  If we succeed at  this,
then  we'll  have one more thing we can point to as an example of why
ABC is better than printed music.

(Not that printed music can't do the same thing; the problem is  that
the stupid publishers f*** it up.  ;-)

This doesn't say what to do about something like |G{A}B|,  where  the
intent  is  to have G anb B beamed together with a grace note between
them.  I suspect that this can't be  handled  without  a  significant
addition  to  ABC's  syntax.  This is similar to the problem of doing
subgrouping of notes within  a  double  beam,  which  standard  music
notation can do easily but can't be represented in ABC.  The simplest
way I can think of to handle these problems would be to extend the w:
use  of the tilde as a "non-separating space", and also use it within
groups of notes to indicate an internal subgrouping.  It  would  mean
you could write CDE~FGA with L:1/16, and get a double beam connecting
CDE and FGA, but just a single beam connecting EF.  G{A}~B would then
imply that the {A} is attached to (i.e., drawn closer to and stealing
time from) the G and not the B.  But this would definitely be new ABC
syntax.

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Re: [abcusers] gracenotes

2001-02-08 Thread Frank Nordberg



James Allwright wrote:
 
 On Thu 08 Feb 2001 at 12:35PM +0100, Frank Nordberg wrote:
 
  (Note: There shouldn't be any grace notes in this tune, of course. I
  just happened to have it handy for testing...)
 
  The results:
 
  BarFlydisplays and plays back nicely.
  abc2midi  plays back nicely
  abc2psignores the grace note
  yaps  comes up with an error message and no output at all
 
 
 yaps seems to be handling the grace note just fine for me. The error
 message is complaining about A  z. Have another look for the
 output file.

You're right. Sorry.

Frank

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