--------
Phil Taylor writes:
| > ... This is what I've done with my doctored abc2ps that accepts
| >the extended syntax
| > K:<tonic><mode><accidentals>
|
| I'll repeat what I said before on this subject. If this change in standard
| becomes accepted, the vast majority of users will use it not just for
| the ambiguous tunes where it is appropriate, but for ALL transcriptions.
| We will have lost what is one of the major advantages of abc over
| conventional notation for the sake of dealing with a theoretical
| problem applying to a very small number of tunes.
Possibly. What I'd personally predict is that a lot of people would
just give the accidentals, but the majority would give the tonic and
accidental. I'd predict this based on the fact that most people's
speech uses things like "in the key of A" rather than "with f, c and
g sharped." A few would use both.
Which of us is right can't be determined by logic, because we're
talking about human behavior, which isn't especially logical. So what
we need is a controlled experiment: We make this notation part of the
standard, and implement it in a lot of programs. Then we study the
ABC that comes out of those programs' new users, to see what the
statistics are.
When we get enough data to have statistically significant results,
one of us can publicly admit that the other was right.
;-)
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