Laurie Griffiths wrote:
>
> (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.
Oh well, time for the big showdown then :-|
Chris Walshaw's introduction to abc (
http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/ ) says among other things:
abc is a language designed to notate tunes in an ascii format. It was
designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western European
origin (such as English, Irish and Scottish) which can be written on
one stave in standard classical notation. However, it is extendible to
many other types of music...
What does that mean? Does it mean "abc started off in the brit-trad
circuit, but we'd like to extend it to fit other styles too", or "abc is
for notating brit-trad music, but people can use it for other styles too
as long as they don't make too much noise about it"?
Today abc is used for many different kinds of music. Sometimes it works
quite well (most European traditional music), sometimes you need to make
a couple of annoying, but acceptable compromises (early music),
sometimes it's quite messy, but more or less possible (17th and 18th C.
"classical" music). Sometimes abc is completely useless.
I discovered abc more or less by accident almost two years ago. I was
immediately taken in by the prospect of having an easy, compact and
compatible-with-everything standard for storing and transfering music
electornically. Nobody said to me: "oh, but remember it only really
works for European traditional music!"
If I remember correctly (and I think I do) the paragraph I quoted from
Walshaw's site was slightly different at that time. Something about abc
originating in British traditonal music, but the plan was to develop it
to fit other musical styles too.
Anyway, I downloaded BarFly immediately and started transcribing music
into abc. By now very few paople can claim to have transcribed more
music into abc than I have. And nobody can claim to have used abc for as
many different musical styles.
I didn't do this work to be able to post music on Internet - I already
had a sheet music site far more popular than any abc site. Nor was it
because working with abc saved me time - it certainly doesn't. I did it
because I *believed* in the idea of a simple, standardized, *universal*
system for notating music.
But abc is far from universal. Hell, you can't even depend on an abc
application being able to deal with the abc you've written. More to the
point, there are still to many people with an "if I don't need it
personally, we shouldn't bother" attitude hiding inside their own little
pigeon holes flatly refusing to look at the huge, wide landscape that is MUSIC.
I'm quite fed up with the whole thing right now, and before I do
anything more with abc, I want a straight an honest answer. No
digressions, no foggy evasive talk, no excuses:
Does KISS really mean "Keep It Single Style" here at abcusers?
Frank
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