>>>>> "Phil" == Phil Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Phil> I don't think this is a bug. If the user puts two accidentals in the
Phil> same bar, predumably she _wants_ the second to be drawn. It's not
Phil> musically necessary.
I agree.
Phil> The early music people need a different convention, where
Phil> accidentals affect only the note to which they are attached,
Phil> but I think that behaviour should be obtainable via a local
Phil> switch, and the modern convention should be the default.
abc2midi in fact implements a switch like that. If you say:
%%MIDI nobarlines
the accidentals affect only the note to which they are attached.
I have also used this switch in my abc2ly translator. Unlike ABC,
lilypond requires you to enter the actual pitches, and not the notes
as displayed in standard notation. So if you have the ABC:
K:C
|^f g a f |
abc2ly translates this as
fis4 g4 a4 fis4
(where fis means f sharp) and that was incorrect for my transcriptions
of renaissance music.
So now abc2ly sets a flag if the "%%MIDI nobarlines" directive is
present, and in that case abc2ly says:
fis4 g4 a4 f4
I had an interesting correspondence with Han-Wen Nienhuys, the head
developer on lilypond, when I submitted the patch with that "fix". He
thought it would be better if there were an algorithm for going from
pitch to notation and back again for early music. I assured him that
there were people making a living claiming to know how you should play
_musica ficta_ in some particular times and places but not any one set
of rules that covered everywhere in Europe from the invention of
tadpole notation to the establishment of the modern convention.
(1400-1700?)
In lilypond, there's a global flag called forgetAccidentals which
forces the display of a second accidental in a measure. That is, if
you say:
fis4 g4 a4 fis4
the second fis will be displayed with a sharp if the forgetAccidentals
property is true, and otherwise (by default) not.
There's also a syntax for forcing an accidental on a particular note
(from the user manual):
A reminder accidental can be forced by adding an exclamation mark `!'
after the pitch. A cautionary accidental, i.e., an accidental within
parentheses can be obtained by adding the question mark `?' after the
pitch.
--
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org )
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