At 05:18 PM 10/27/2000 -0700, you wrote:
> A triplet in abc2mtex is written (3abc; in abc2ps, it's
>((3abc)---the slur has to be put in explicitly. (Technically, I don't
>think it's a slur--it's just a grouping symbol to catch the eye, and it's
>often denoted with an angular slur, instead of the usual curvy one.
>
> Question: do people ever write triplets without that slur mark?
>(Silly question--we're talking about music, so of course, *someone's*
>bound to do it.) But is it common?
I do. It's not at all uncommon in Cape Breton music to single-
bow triplets, especially when they turn up as pick-up notes in clogs.
So I transcribe them the way I play them. I will point out here that
I'm referring to triplets where the three notes have *different*
pitches, because that type of triplet isn't the same thing as a cut
(2 16th notes and one 1/8 note of the same pitch).
However in thumbing through O'Neill's, I see triplets that are
comparable to CB cuts - three notes of the same pitch. As an example,
(AAA turns up twice in the A part of Pigeon on the Gate. That sequence
wouldn't make any sense with a slur mark.
I often use abc2mtex, and have to
>re-edit tunes each time I want to print them out in abc2ps. It would be
>handy if ((3abc) and (3abc were considered to be equivalent.
But you'd lose the option of notating triplets without them.
> In fact, both notations have a practical drawback: they unbalance
>the parentheses. The compromise notation (3abc) would have the advantage
>of balancing the parentheses, allowing one to use the brace-matching
>present on lots of text editors to check for runaway slurs. (I seem to
>remember starting some slurs that ended ten tunes later...:-)
They do sort of jump off the page at you when you print, don't
they? :-)
Wendy
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