(I'm still wading through version 2 of the Rocky grammar).
I don't want to exclude Jazz guitarists 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 consensus between
musicians as to what it means - so that, for instance, a group of mutually
unacquainted 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 consensus 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 (and those two cover most of folk music),
Minor (now we have almost done),
Single note only (and now we can do fancy bass runs)
Root+fifth only
Diminished,
Minor seventh,
6th (which is an inversion of a minor seventh),
Major seventh,
Fourth ("sus"), meaning root, 4th 5th
Augmented, meaning 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 different.
11ths, 13ths, minor 9ths with augmented 5ths etc.etc. I don't want in the
core set at all. However, although I'm dead against them being in the core
set, 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. Of course the
hot jazz "standard" set might be quite different from the flamenco
"standard" set (F-- = [F,,C,F,A,B,E] and so forth).
I'm not very keen on #include mechanisms because it complicates passing a
file is passed around the network.
Laurie
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