Re: [abcusers] Modes and key signatures (Was: Hi)

[James Allwright]

On Wed 07 Mar 2001 at 12:35AM +0000, Phil Taylor wrote:
> Wil wrote:
> 
> >But is there a compelling reason why we should not define
> >"E hejaz" or "E freygish"?  (in a similar manner to the definition
> >proposed for chords)
> >

I assume we are talking about the K: field here, and I think there is
a fairly compelling case against.

Adding new modes ad hoc like this is not application-friendly. Currently, we
know that the mode will be only one of 12 possibilities, so we can cover
all cases. If an application does not recognize a mode, the rest of the file 
becomes just about useless. Writing something like

K:C ^b _f % hejaz

conveys the same information and is fully backwards-compatible.
(I'm sure this example is wrong because I have no idea what hejaz is).
Obviously there are many people who find mode information helpful and
useful, but then again many people can manage perfectly well without
it, so it seems a little unreasonable to force a full knowledge of modes
onto anyone who wants to read abc.

I hope I haven't stirred up too much of the religous ferver that this topic
always seems to invite.

James Allwright
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