(I'm still wading through version 2 of the Rocky grammar).
I'll begin by admitting a bias (Jazz guitar makes me reach for the off
switch).
I don't want to exclude these guys from using ABC but I also feel that I
don't want ABC cluttered up with very complicated descriptions of chords.
I'd rather have simple chords simply defined and an extension mechanism to
allow those who need it to define complicated [dis-]chords or to express
more control over inversions etc.
As an example "A" could mean [Aeae'] (a common mandolin version - perhaps a
better name would be "A5", but mandolinists will often play that for "A"),
or [Ae^c'a'] (another mandolin version) or [E,,A,,E,A,^CE] (guitar),
[E,,A,,E,A,^CA] (guitar, half bar on fret 2), [A,,E,A,^CEA] (guitar, bar on
5), and so on, not forgetting blue grass banjo chords where there are liable
to be unisons coming from the short string.
Even though there is this ambiguity, there is a remarkable concensus between
musicians as to what it means - so that, for instance, a group of mutually
unaquainted musicians can play from the same music and sound OK.
Discussion here seems to suggest that A-3+5, A+9, Aadd8, Asus9 and so forth
cause confusion, and although it would be possible to define a grammar and a
semantics that would be natural to some, it would be unnatural to others and
possibly quite "wrong" to some.
I would rather have an extension mechanism so that the definition of C#5b3
(or whatever) was contained in the file rather than somewhere less
immediately accessible (such as the ABC standard).
This serves two other purposes. Firstly different groups of musicians (who,
I guess would rarely play together) can use their own "standard" notations.
Secondly, different notations can compete in a Darwinian sense and the best
will perhaps eventually prevail and become a de facto standard without the
need of ABCUsers to reach a concensus or ABC developers to reach agreement.
The question is then "what chords form the basic core"? Jazz players might
want about a million, and mouth-organ players might want about two.
My own choice is not far from where I started:
Major,
Seventh (so far that deals with most of folk music),
Minor (now we have almost all the rest),
Single note only (and now we are just about done)
Root+fifth only
Diminished,
Minor seventh,
6th (which is an inversion of a minor seventh),
Major seventh,
Fourth ("sus") root, 4th 5th
Augmented (root, major 3rd, sharpened 5th)
I'm quite happy to add a bass note as a guide to inversion.
I'd be not unhappy to add
Root+Octave only,
I'm open to convincing about 9th - the standard definition seems to be root,
3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, but that's pretty much unplayable on guitar, so I think
that what passes for "G9" is probably quite difference.
11ths, 13ths, minor 9ths with augmented 5ths etc.etc. I don't want in the
standard at all. I'm dead against them, but I *do* want an extension
mechanism so that by doing no more than including a standard insert in the
file that only needs to be worked out once by one writer in that idiom, a
user can have their own jargon in a way that can be printed, played,
transposed, tempered and so on.
I'm not very keen on #include mecanisms because it complicates passing a
file is passed around the network. The set of files need to be marshalled
first.
Laurie
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