>>>>> "John" == John Atchley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
John> Have you tried the following?
John> w:A\-___way to the blah blah
OK, here's a test tune, with five possibilities:
X:1
T:4r. Oculus non vidit,
T:Test of various melisma indications
H: transcribed from the Musica Alamire facsimile of the original
H: printed in Antwerp by Petrum Phalesium, 1609
%%gchordfont Helvetica 12 box
%%MIDI nobarlines
M:C|
L:1/4
K:D dorian
T:Superius.
T:A. intra-word melismas with -
e6 d2 c2 A2 c3 d e4 A4 z2 A B c d e c f2 d e f d f2 e4 A4 A3 B
w:O- cu- lus non vi- - - dit, nec _ _ _ _ _ _ au- - - - -- ris au- di-
T:B. intra-word melismas with _; escaped dash to indicate syllable
e6 d2 c2 A2 c3 d e4 A4 z2 A B c d e c f2 d e f d f2 e4 A4 A3 B
w:O- cu- lus non vi\- _ _ dit, nec _ _ _ _ _ _ au\- _ _ _ _ _ ris au- di\-
T:C. intra-word melismas with underscore, except for dash on first one
e6 d2 c2 A2 c3 d e4 A4 z2 A B c d e c f2 d e f d f2 e4 A4 A3 B
w:O- cu- lus non vi - _ dit, nec _ _ _ _ _ _ au - _ _ _ _ ris au- di-
T:D. typed what I consider the "normal" way, with a dash to indicate
T:syllabification and _'s for melismas.
T:I consider what abc2ps does with this to be a bug
e6 d2 c2 A2 c3 d e4 A4 z2 A B c d e c f2 d e f d f2 e4 A4 A3 B
w:O- cu- lus non vi- _ _ dit, nec _ _ _ _ _ _ au- _ _ _ _ _ ris au- di-
T:E. Like C, but with the dash escaped
e6 d2 c2 A2 c3 d e4 A4 z2 A B c d e c f2 d e f d f2 e4 A4 A3 B
w:O- cu- lus non vi \- _ dit, nec _ _ _ _ _ _ au \- _ _ _ _ ris au- di-
If you want to vote on what should happen, run it through abc2ps and
see what you think of the output.
My judgement is that I can live with any of these outputs except D.
I like what A does with vidit, but I find the varying distance between
the dashes on au- ris distracting. It's as easy to type as anything.
One possible way for ABC to support typesetting vocal music better
would be to implement dashed melismas the way Finale does, and print
the dashes equally spaced between the two syllables.
B looks OK, and isn't much harder to type and edit than A or D.
I like the look of C better than B, but it's a little harder to type,
because you have to remember to separate the dash from the syllable if
there's a melisma and not otherwise, and you need to shift after the
dash to get the underscores. Also, I think James and maybe other
people don't think it's valid ABC for reasons I can't remember at the
moment.
D looks hideous, and I think should be fixed to look like B, C, or E.
I do think it's the way anyone typesetting this kind of music would
expect to be able to type this.
E is something that occurred to me as I was typing in the others. It
has all the typing disadvantages of C, but I don't think it looks as
good. But I think everyone would agree it's valid ABC.
--
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ )
(617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
