Mike Whitaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote :
>On Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 09:02:49PM +0100, Frank Nordberg wrote:
>> I think the attempt to standardize chord notation is laudable, but I'm
>> still not sure whether it's a good idea or not - or even if it's
>> possible at all. We've already discussed the lack of standardisation in
>> the field of "standard notation", but the rules for tadpoles are
>> extremely rigid compared to the ones for hord notation.
>
>I would note that there's a fine distinction between 'standardising' and
>'saying what abc will accept and understand'. We can't force a chording
>standard on the world: we *can* say 'write 'em THIS way if you want
>abc programs that parse chords to understand them'.
The following is just thinking aloud, rather than a fully-reasoned
thought, but ...
It strikes me that we are up against the multiple uses that people put
abc to here. Which, then, is preferable :
(a) we cater for those who either play directly from the abc, or from
notation generated by feeding the abc into Abc2Win, Barfly, abc2ps and
all its mutations, Skink, etc ....
If we take that route we can wrap up this debate here, because so long
as we don't break the convention that anything in the " " is (or should
be reproduced in the same position as) a chord, we're in the clear.
or
(b) we cater for those who feed abc into player programmes and make
their primary use of the notation that way, in which case we do need a
formalised standard of agreed chord notations.
Personally I incline to (a). Chord notation is multifarious and varied,
and my gut feeling is that that any attempt to standardise will become
either over-prescriptive, in which case people will ignore it anyway, or
hideously complicated and self-contradictory.
I do, however, refer anyone who disagrees with that, to my first
sentence :-)
Steve Mansfield
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.lesession.demon.co.uk - abc music notation tutorial and other goodies
To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
