[abcusers] Woodenflute mailing list tune archive updated
The tune archive from the woodenflute mailing list has now been updated to include all postings up to the end of January - the archive now holds 499 tunes in abc format. http://www.lesession.demon.co.uk/abc/woodenflute.htm Steve Mansfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.lesession.demon.co.uk - abc music notation tutorial, the uk.music.folk newsgroup FAQ, and other goodies To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] ties and accidentals
One of those other Johns wrote: | On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, John Chambers wrote: | I have no control over what people put on their web sites, so I have a | strong incentive to use Be liberal in what you accept as a major | rule. | | I disagree, both with this rule and with the idea that you have no | influence over how people choose to write their ABC. By your own words, | the reason this problem exists is because of the widespread use of | software that has casually accepted the use of - as a slur without | complaint -- i.e., software that has been too liberal. So in effect, you | have chosen to become part of the problem, rather than the solution! Yes; I can understand this argument. But I'd classify it as a red herring. Why? Well, consider what it would take for the typical user to use my ABC Tune Finder to verify their own tunes. You can't just point it at your file; you need to get your file into its index. So you have to create at least one (and probably a dozen or so) ABC files with titles like T: Test Tune 1 and so on. You put them into a directory in your web site and send me the URL. Some time within the next few weeks, I'll run my search program, and then your files will be in my indexes. After waiting several weeks, you can go to the Tune Finder and type in Test Tune, and it'll find your tunes. You can now edit your file(s), ask for it to be downloaded in PS or MIDI or whatever format, and see whether it works. If it does, you won't see any possible warning messages, because you only get a pointer to the log file if the conversion fails. This is exceedingly clumsy, and I'd be frankly surprised if there's anyone on the Net who does it. I certainly don't, although I have easy access to all its innards. It's far better to simply fetch one or two of the many ABC tools and install them on your own machine. You get a lot more functionality, and much faster response. (Granted, someone knowledgeable about the Web can invoke my conversion programs directly. This was a conscious part of my design. Some people have done this, and I even have a page explaining how to do it. This could be used to validate and convert ABC files. But still, I suspect that nobody is routinely using it this way. You're much better off installing ABC software on your own machine. My CGI scripts are really only useful when invoked from a web page.) | At the very least, I think that using - as a slur should result in a | clear *warning* to the user that the ABC standard discourages this | practice, and it is not guaranteed to work with other ABC software. Then | I suppose you could be as liberal as you want in idiot-proofing your | software without much risk of further exacerbating the problem. Most musicians don't understand the distinction between a tie and a slur. You could argue that there isn't really a distinction. A slur means to play the notes without articulating any but the first. When you do this with two identical notes, they merge into one note, and that's what we call a tie. So a tie is just a special case of a slur, not a different musical thing. The usual staff notation that represents them (nearly) identically is based on this understanding. It's really the ABC representation that's misleading, implying that ties and slurs are different things. It would be better for ABC to officially go along with the usual musical convention, and just say that the tie notation is shorthand for a two-note slur, and for identical notes, causes them to merge into a single long note. This is how ties are implemented in a lot of software already, and it's a very useful way to do it. | I don't want to waste my time responding to users' complaints about my | web site bombing for ABC that works elsewhere. | | I can respect this, but at the same time, I don't feel that it justifies | dumbing down the standard to the lowest common denominator. It's nearly impossible for me to dumb down ABC. If you subscribe to some of the musical mailing lists that use ABC, you'll quickly see what I mean. The quality of much of the posted ABC is abysmally low, and dumb syntax errors are rife. People routinely use English text for information that belongs in the headers, because they can't be bothered to learn about any headers except T, M and K. And they get those wrong with amazing frequency. It would be difficult for me to write software that encourages anything worse. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] ties and accidentals
John == John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John It's really the ABC representation that's misleading, implying that John ties and slurs are different things. It would be better for ABC to John officially go along with the usual musical convention, and just say John that the tie notation is shorthand for a two-note slur, and for John identical notes, causes them to merge into a single long note. If this were true, the usual notation for an F# tied across a bar would have a sharp on the second F. And in the music I play, it doesn't. I agree that most musicians are hazy on the distinction, but I think most music printers are aware of it. And musicians are to the extent that they don't play the second F tied. -- Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139 To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] ties and accidentals
On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, John Chambers wrote: Most musicians don't understand the distinction between a tie and a slur. So you may speculate, but I doubt you have any quantifiable evidence to back that up. You could argue that there isn't really a distinction. Here is an example of the distinction. These two passages should be played differently: (C D E- | E F G) (C D E | E F G) If there were no distinction, we would never need to write ties within slurs. From a notational perspective, another example of the distinction is the fact that a passage of slurred notes requires only one slur. But when a series of notes are tied, each adjacent pair must be connected with their own tie: E2- | E2- | E2 ===correct (E2 | E2 | E2) ===incorrect Yet another example is the fact that slurring two different chords together requires only one slur. But when you tie a chord to a chord, each note of the chord requires a tie: [C2-E2-G2-] | [CEG] ===correct ([C2E2G2] | [CEG]) ===incorrect Now, if there's no distinction, why do ties and slurs obey different rules? A slur means to play the notes without articulating any but the first. Please tell me how to play a note on the piano, marimba, harp, snare drum, etc. without articulating it. Apparently, I've been playing far too many notes all these years :-) What a slur really means is that the passage should be played legato. This does not preclude any and all articulation (see the first example I gave). On the contrary, it is actually quite common to find articulation marks *within* slurs. It's really the ABC representation that's misleading, implying that ties and slurs are different things. It would be better for ABC to officially go along with the usual musical convention, and just say that the tie notation is shorthand for a two-note slur, and for identical notes, causes them to merge into a single long note. According to whom, exactly, is this the usual musical convention? This is how ties are implemented in a lot of software already, and it's a very useful way to do it. It's also wrong. Implementing ties and slurs this way makes it impossible for the computer to distinguish between the first two examples I gave. The computer would play them both identically. And how would it handle something like this, I wonder: L:1/8 M:C K:Db z2 (.A z .B z .d z | .e z .f z .e z .B) z | d2 z2 z4 | It's nearly impossible for me to dumb down ABC. If you subscribe to some of the musical mailing lists that use ABC, you'll quickly see what I mean. The quality of much of the posted ABC is abysmally low, and dumb syntax errors are rife. What I meant was that the standard should not be changed so that dumb syntax errors become correct. And I would consider notating an F sharp slurred to an F natural with ^F-|F to be just such an error. The day the standard endorses garbage like this is the day I stop using ABC. John To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] ties and accidentals
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, John Chambers wrote: Most musicians don't understand the distinction between a tie and a slur. So you may speculate, but I doubt you have any quantifiable evidence to back that up. So, to start quantifying it, I *do* know the difference. You could argue that there isn't really a distinction. ...snip... What a slur really means is that the passage should be played legato. This does not preclude any and all articulation (see the first example I gave). On the contrary, it is actually quite common to find articulation marks *within* slurs. It's really the ABC representation that's misleading, implying that ties and slurs are different things. It would be better for ABC to officially go along with the usual musical convention, and just say that the tie notation is shorthand for a two-note slur, and for identical notes, causes them to merge into a single long note. According to whom, exactly, is this the usual musical convention? This is how ties are implemented in a lot of software already, and it's a very useful way to do it. It's also wrong. Implementing ties and slurs this way makes it impossible for the computer to distinguish between the first two examples I gave. The computer would play them both identically. And how would it handle something like this, I wonder: L:1/8 M:C K:Db z2 (.A z .B z .d z | .e z .f z .e z .B) z | d2 z2 z4 | It's nearly impossible for me to dumb down ABC. If you subscribe to some of the musical mailing lists that use ABC, you'll quickly see what I mean. The quality of much of the posted ABC is abysmally low, and dumb syntax errors are rife. What I meant was that the standard should not be changed so that dumb syntax errors become correct. And I would consider notating an F sharp slurred to an F natural with ^F-|F to be just such an error. The day the standard endorses garbage like this is the day I stop using ABC. John I'll have to say I agree with John. His explanation of these things certainly agrees with what I have been taught and learned over the last 40+ years here in the States. I would have to say that, for me, this is the usual musical convention. So, as a user of ABC, and not a developer, I would say the answer to this is simple - ABC ain't broke - don't fix it! -- = = No matter how I feel, God is worthy of my praise. = = May the peace of the Father, and the love of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit encircle and enfold you, and keep you this day. Rick My opinions are my own, and, unfortunately, not those of the rest of society. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] A question about converting abc2ps output ps to pdf
On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Rick Davis wrote: My question is - when I take the ps output of abc2ps and run it through ps2pdf, the resulting pdf makes the first and second ending bars into closed rectangles, the bottom part of which runs straight through the chords I have there. I don't really udnderstand the problem, could you please post (that means posta link and put the actual files on your webspace if you have some) the .abc file, the postscript file and the pdf file for us to better understand what you mean. Basically I can only say that I experienced no problems with ps2pdf'ing postscript comming out of my formatter (abcm2ps), but that can be luck :-) -- Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] A question about converting abc2ps output ps to pdf
Laura Conrad wrote: Rick == Rick Davis [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Rick My question is - when I take the ps output of abc2ps and run Rick it through ps2pdf, the resulting pdf makes the first and Rick second ending bars into closed rectangles, the bottom part Rick of which runs straight through the chords I have there. Rick Have any of you ever run into this, and if so, did you find Rick a way around it? Yes, I've seen this. I think it means you're running an old version of ghostscript. Try upgrading and see if it helps. Thanks. I am running 5.10, so it seems that is an old version since they are at at least 6.52 for GPL version now. Now I just have to see if that means I have to upgrade from Red Hat 6.0, too. ;-) Thanks. Rick My opinions are my own, and, unfortunately, not those of the rest of society. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] ties and accidentals
This thread keeps going on, but I have the feeling that there has been agreement for some time, and we've just forgotten it. But I've often been wrong on that score before... Here's what I think has been said: ties and slurs can't always be distinguished in printed staff notation. The usual convention is that if there is an ambiguity between tie and slur, one always assumes it's a tie; in other words, in questions of tie/slur, the default is a tie. There is no ambiguity in abc---the example ^f- | f has a tie, not a slur---so that the second f has to be an f sharp. Which means that playback and midi programs should play ^f, but printing programs don't print the accidental (because they don't need to--the convention takes care of it.) It would seem to follow---but I don't remember if there was agreement here---that if one wrote ^f- | ^f that the accidental on the second f is there for emphasis, and a printing program should print it; but it should be equivalent to ^f- | f for any midi or playback program, or for that matter, to a musician reading the tune. Another question was lightly touched on, but not resolved: if we add another f to the examples: ^f-| f f and ^f- | ^f f ...what should be done with the third f? I would think that in the first example, it's an f natural, in the second, it's an f sharp (since the printing program will have explicitly sharped the first f in the measure, so by extension, all later f's will be sharped.) But I'm guessing---we should just follow whatever the actual convention is in printed music for this. John Chambers brought up the question of having software accept abc's tie notation for a slur. It seems relatively harmless to me, as long as it doesn't prevent people from using the tie/slur distinction the way it's meant to be, but it points out the need for clear documentation--it's easy to imagine someone using a tie for a slur and then having no clue as to why some strange accidentals showed up later on in the measure. Cheers, John Walsh To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] abc2abc crashes
Hi, maybe it's not a big achievement, but I just made abc2abc (1.13) crash, by hitting it with this: X:1 T:Crash abc2abc with -t 2 M:4/4 L:1/4 C:Atte André Jensen K:D A#/Bz2 z2 | I don't see anything wrong in the example (do any of you?), so I think we have ourselves a bug... -- Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
