| Steve Mansfield wrote:
| > Guido Gonzato <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote :
| >>> That's all: there is no need to have more information in this field.
| >>> Now, let's focus on the printing (%%staves -> s: ?) and playing
| >>> (%%MIDI -> m: ?) information fields...
| >> I guess somebody might argue that these fields shouldn't be part of abc,
| >> since they deal with specific music features like typesetting and playing.
Well, I'd like to point out that, except for typesetting issues, the
V: lines aren't needed at all. If all you want is to indicate the
music for a multi-part piece of music, doing each part as a separate
"tune" with its own X: line works quite well.
The main function of the V: lines is to tell the software to
intersperse the staves for several voices, and to align the notes and
bar lines. This is a purely typesetting operation. It adds no musical
information; it "merely" makes the music a lot easier to read.
Similarly, questions about grouping staves and putting two voices on
a single staff are also purely typesetting operations. These add no
musical information; they are purely visual effects.
V: lines also aren't needed for playback. All that is required is
that you make sure the Q: lines are correct, and then you can
superpose as many independent tunes as you like.
Note that I'm not saying we don't need V: lines. I've occasionally
read vocal music that had the parts written out separately, and it's
no fun. Having the parts lined up in standard choral-music fashion is
a great increase in readability. I'm just pointing out that there is
no *musical* information imparted by such things. It just improves
readability.
Considering that we are trying to make a music-formatting feature
part of the ABC standard via a mixture of V: and %% lines, we might
want to look around at different kinds of multi-part music and see if
we can do a bit more than the minimum. When Michael Methfessel added
V: to abc2ps, he included a number of optional attributes that were
aimed at mimicing the format of orchestral scores. If V: lines are to
be really useful, it might help if some form of these are included as
optional parts of the standard. Even with these, I've already seen
problems with introducing abc to orchestra and band situations. The
reaction tends to be "ABC isn't very good at this; it lacks all sorts
of things that *must* be in the music if it is to be usable." I tend
to agree. I could implement a lot of those things myself, of course,
but then I'd be working entirely outside the standard.
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