At 04:24 PM 1/30/2001 +0000, JC wrote:
>As for the "global accidentals" question, I'd think that having an
>option to show them in either the key signature or before the notes
>is generally a good idea. The most useful default would be to show
>them in the key signature. But sprinkling them through the music
>could be useful in some circumstances. Doing both could also come in
>handy at times. If they could be shown as parenthesized accidentals,
>that would be even better. There's lots of opportunity here for a
>versatile music-display package.
What you're saying is that the display program, such as "abc2ps", should
include options to
1. put global accidentals in the key signature (Yes or No)
2. put global accidentals throughout the piece (yes, yes with
parens, or no)
I hope you are not saying that ABC should have syntax to specify such
options. These options are not part of the musical content, therefore they
should not be in the ABC file. These options should either be on the
abc2ps command line or in the FMT file.
The draft standard says "K:D =c would write the key signature as two sharps
(key of D) but then mark every c as natural" and I object to this
wording! The ABC spec should not dictate any typesetting options. The
spec should be changed to say
---------- proposed new wording for the abc spec ------------------
Global accidentals can also be set in this field so that, for example, K:D
=c is conceptually the same as D mixolydian. The display program may put
global accidentals in the key signature, or throughout the piece, or both.
----------- end of proposed change ------------
And I think that we need a reminder in the spec regarding the purpose of
ABC. Something like this...
---------- proposed addition to the abc spec ------------------
The Purpose and Scope of ABC
------------------------------------------
The ABC notation is a language for musical information. It is designed for
modern and classical western music. However, it has features that can
accomodate other kinds of music. The musical scale uses the usual letters
A to G with 12 semitones per octave.
ABC is specifically for musical information and not typesetting
information. For example, ABC does not have any way to specify the
direction and length of the stems on the notes, the height of the staves,
the margins, the size of the note heads, etc.
Also ABC does not contain information specific to generating sound. For
example, ABC does not have any way to specify program change (a midi
instrument), pitch bend, volume, etc.
The omission of typesetting and sound information is intentional. However
it does not mean that ABC cannot be used for this purpose. In fact, there
are many very good programs that use ABC input for typesetting and sound
output. In order for these programs to work, the non-musical information
must be provided from another source such as: defaults, command line
options, an options file, or pseudo-comments within the ABC file. For
example, the "abc2midi" program allows the user to set program information
using a comment "%%MIDI program n" in the ABC file.
------------ end of proposed addition to the spec ------------
John Henckel alt. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Zumbro Falls, Minnesota, USA (507) 753-2216
http://geocities.com/jdhenckel/
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