Laura Conrad wrote:
>>>>>> "Jean-Francois" == Jean-Francois Moine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Jean-Francois> As nobody did it yet, here is a definition of the
> Jean-Francois> V: field to be included in the ABC draft.
>
> Jean-Francois> $ V:voice yes
>V:2, V:Soprano
>
>We need a little more explanation about V:<number>, especially if
>we're going to make the <number> optional, as implied by V:Soprano.
>
>Currently, abc2ps pretty much ignores it, except as an identifier, but
>abc2midi requires that there be a strict sequence, and ignores a V:3
>if there isn't a V:2. That is, I was playing with extracting parts
>from a 4-part piece (via Christoph Dalitz' perl program, abcselect),
>and if I extracted voices 1 and 4, I could get printout, but not MIDI
>playback of the fourth voice.
>
>I would prefer the abc2ps treatment of the number.
It is MUCH more difficult for player programs to handle oddities
of voice numbering than it is for display programs, since the
latter can mostly get away with just displaying the lines in the
order in which they are stated in the abc. Player programs have
to find all the bits of each voice and assemble them together into
a tune. They also have to know when to stop looking (which is
probably why abcmidi didn't find voice 4 - it stopped looking for
further voices when it failed to find voice 2).
For that reason I would prefer a stricter standard here, which
specifies a contiguous series of voice numbers starting at 1.
After all, in a program which extracts some voices from an abc
tune it would be quite trivial to renumber the voices as you go.
Much easier than writing a player program which can deal with:
Voice 1 absent
Gaps elsewhere in the sequence
Voices out of order
Maximum voice number undefined
>But if the number is going to be significant, we need to be able to
>specify a name as well, as in:
>
> V:2 name=Alto
I have no problem with that. V:Soprano is no problem either, as I
can simply add a macro to substitute a number for "Soprano".
>I agree that there's no necessity to provide key and clef information
>in the V: field.
That depends on what you consider the scope of a V: field to be.
Personally, I consider everything between the number and the next
V: field to be part of that scope, including the tune and any
fields contained within it, so key and clef info definitely
goes into V: fields.
Phil Taylor
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