John Chambers wrote:
>
> Bruce Olson writes:
> |
> | Grace notes are automatically slured to the following note in my
> | program, because you have to take the time for the graces notes from it,
> | and if you don't slur them the main note sounds staccato.
>
> Well, that's exactly why some people have objected to the automatic
> slurring. Detached ornaments are normal in some kinds of music. I've
> heard this effect from a lot of Scottish and Irish fiddlers. If the
> software insists on adding the slur, then you can't accurately
> represent the actual ornament. You're in effect saying that those
> musicians are wrong, and they should play the notes slurred. This is
> a peculiar thing for software to impose.
>
> A lot of publishers also automatically add slurs to all ornaments.
> The result is that musicians learn that such slurs are just noise and
> are to be ignored. You play the ornaments so they sound right, and
> ignore what's on the paper. But this is really a case of bad
> notation. If the slur is meaningless, we're better off without it on
> the page, so we can pencil it in if we like. Even better would be to
> make it mean something, so the transcriber can use it to communicate
> useful information.
>
> | It's fairly easy to put grace notes after the note from which they get
> | their time duration, but such are so rare that it didn't seem to me to
> | be worth the effort.
>
> It's certainly rare in ABC, since the software doesn't allow it.
>
> Actually, I'd agree that it's rare in most of the music that I play.
> But it does occur, and when I've needed it, I've had to resort to
> writing something like A7/4B//c// rather than the more readable
> A2{Bc}. And, of course, when I do this, people can include my file in
> a list to show that post grace notes aren't used at all. Well, yeah;
> if you don't let people use the little notes, they'll write things
> out with big notes, and the result will be less readable.
>
> It's fairly standard to write software that doesn't allow something
> and then say "Well, our users don't do that, so it must not be
> needed." I've heard this sort of reasoning repeatedly from all sorts
> of software developers. I don't find it very convincing.
>
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My ABC player will now play trailing grace notes, all slured to the
preceeding note so they don't sound staccato.
Bruce Olson
--
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