On Juanury 4th John Henckel suggested to make the abc notation XML
compatible, but then said he had changed his mind since that would have
meant would sacrifying too much of the clarity and
usability of ABC.
Richard Robinsons replyed:
Have you ever looked at raw musixtex, as, eg, hint hint, output from
abc2mtex ? It's *far* nastier than that :)
Well, the first four bars of Jacob (or Enrico - English hornpipe appearing
in the Hardy family manuscript, for those which aren't familiar with it, and
in quite a few abc versions on the web), looks more or less like this:
\pnotes{2.83}\qu{'a}\en%
\xbar
\pnotes{2.83}\ql{'d}\en%
\pnotes{2.00}\ibl1{'f}{-2}\qb1f\tbl1\qb1e\ibl1c0\qb1d\qb1c\qb1d%
\tbl1\qb1b\en%
\xbar
\pnotes{2.00}\ibu1{'a}0\qb1a\qb1b\qb1a\tbu1\qb1{`g}\en%
\pnotes{2.83}\qu f\qu{'a}\en%
\xbar
\pnotes{2.83}\ql{'d}\en%
\pnotes{2.00}\ibl1{'e}2\qb1e\tbl1\qb1f\ibl1g0\qb1g\qb1f\qb1g\tbl1\qb1f%
\en%
\xbar
\pnotes{2.83}\ql{'e}\ql{'a}\ql a\qu{`a}\en%
Yes, those are just four bars of music, stipped of any comment lines, not to
tell of some 25/30 lines of header!
Yet, have a look at this please:
Title: Jacob or Enrico
Composer: traditional
Meter: 4/4
Sharps: 3
Style: SOLO
a4 | d f8 e d c d b | a b a g f4 a | d e8 f g f g f | e4 a a a- |
d f8 e d c d b | a b a g f4 a | d g8 f e d e c | d4 d d :| f8 g |
a4 a8 g f g f e | d e d c b4 b | g8+ a g f e f e d | c d c b a4 a4x3 b c |
d4 d c8 e c a | d4 d c8 e c a | d4 f e8 d e c | d4 d d :|
Now, have a look at its abc counterpart:
X:1
T: Jacob or Enrico
C: traditional
L: 1/8
M:4/4
K:D
A2 | d2fe dcdB | ABAG F2A2 | d2ef gfgf | e2a2 a2A2 |
d2fe dcdB | ABAG F2A2 | B2gf edec | d2d2 d2 :|
fg | a2ag fgfe | dedc B2B2 | gagf efed | cdcB A2(3ABc |
d2d2 cecA | d2d2 cecA | d2f2 edec | d2d2 d2 :|
Do you really think that the abc notation comes out as a clear winner in
terms of human readability? And if I had chosen a complex score (multistave,
multivoice, many lyric lines, guitar chords, marks...)...
Maybe having a look around to see what can be done with other typesetting
packages could be of some help in discussing the V: lines sintax.
Regards
Gianni
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