At 06:14 PM 11-14-2001 +0100, Simon Wascher you wrote: >Hello, > >No I do not know about but I am highly interested in the playford file, > >Just out of curiosity how do you integrate music and text ? >Do you do it using >%%begintext >%%endtext >and generate a single .ps file ?
My goal is to follow the standard as much as possible, and not take advantage of any extensions that the primary tools I'm using (abc2mini, yaps) offers. As such, as much as it pains me, I'm not even using %%newpage, available in yaps, because it's an extension. Right now, I'm using the W: field, and yaps is giving me acceptable results. Early experiments with Bransles from Arbeau tried to abuse the w: notation, with so-so results. I quickly discovered that there were severe problems -- when notating a dance in triple-time (three minims/step), with a crotchet as primary note length (so 6 notes written per step), a dance instruction like "Double Left" takes two notes and four steps, and just doesn't fit. I could fake it by going into the level of detail Arbeau does (Double left = pied gauche largi, pied droit approach, pied gauce largi, pied driot joins), but that becomes hard to read and obscures the dance more than it enlightens. The method broke down completely when I realized I needed to do things like "Couple 1cross left shoulders and pass up the hall outside to top of set; couple 2 take hands and exchange positions with couple 3 with two slips up middle" also in the space of 4 steps. So using w: or any similar thing is pretty much right out. I have split the Playford file on tune breaks, allowing me to edit and proofread/listen each tune separately. The first thing I noticed about the Playford collection was the temp settings were way off -- a typical piece would be M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:100, which abc2midi proceeded to play at a really slow speed. The 100 beats/minute make the most sense as 100 steps/minute, so the first thing I'd change is Q:3/8=100, which makes the tune go at a danceable pace. The file has also been passed around enough that some lines of music were damaged by spurious linewrapping, so I'd correct that. I also break the lines into 4-measure bars (for convenience) deleted any chords or other accompaniment to leave pure melody, and identify the break between verse and chorus parts. Then I add the dance steps in W: lines, eventually both in the original notation used by Playford (or other early author) and in something more modernly useful. Right now, I'm using "cheat-sheets" as my guide to the steps. Once the dance steps are in place, I add appropriate repeat symbols to the music to make the chorus and verse melodies long enough to cover the dance steps, then I add a tune-header P: line to indicate how the piece should be played for a normal dance (usually, this is "P: (AB)3", but is sometimes different). As I am doing this, I am reviewing the .ps file and listening to the MIDI file often, to verify I'm getting the results I want. At one point, I had created a Makefile that would create ps and midi files when an abc file would change. All told, it takes me less than an hours work per song -- assuming I have the primary and secondary sources to work from. The main problem with primary sources is that I've found few clear online scans of Playford that have readable music. I have found an address online of a publisher who might be printing Playford, but I haven't had an opportunity to look into it. >Simon To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
