Matt wrote:
>Here's an odd question. Say you have an abc file in 4/4 with "R:hornpipe"
>in the header. Is it possible to notate a pair of straight eighth notes in
>such a file?
In principle, you can use an R: field in the tune, so there's nothing to stop
you putting [R:none] before the straight notes and [R:hornpipe] to restore
the swing afterwards. I just tried it in BarFly and discovered that it only
recognises the first R: change, ignoring subsequent ones (I'll have to fix
that).
>I'm transcribing the bass line to a jazz piece for which "R:hornpipe" is a
>suitable, if strange, way of saying "play this one in swing rhythm". Most
>of the piece has a swing feel. But at one point, the bassist plays
>straight eighth notes -- which sounds pretty cool, but how on earth do you
>notate that?
>
>I know that using R:hornpipe is deprecated in favor of a>b c<d notation,
>and that straight eighths would be a piece of cake if I followed the
>latter convention. However, dotted notation of the sort you get in the
>PostScript output with a>b c<d is non-standard for jazz charts. So I
>prefer to work with "R:hornpipe % i.e., swing" in the header.
Why do you think it's deprecated? At least in Scotland, most hornpipes are not
notated with broken rhythms - if you write it with a>b notation it's
probably a Strathspey - hornpipe rhythm is a bit "less dotted". In abc,
the R: field tells players to use a stress program, which can give you various
subtleties of rhythm which are hard to notate.
>To complicate matters further, I have no idea how a jazz publisher would
>distinguish between straight and swing eighth notes. So even if it's
>possible to notate straight eighths in abc hornpipe rhythm, and the MIDI
>comes out right, I wouldn't really know how to assess the typographic
>"rightness" of the PostScript output.
>
No, I've no idea either. I suspect that such timing shifts are not normally
notated.
Phil Taylor
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