Reading this post gave me a sense of deja vu.
On Fri 23 Nov 2001 at 07:53PM -0500, Buddha Buck wrote: > One of the arguments I keep hearing against a free-text tempo header is > that there are already many ways of placing arbitrary text into a tune -- > usually using the "guitar chord" notation, or variants on the accent notation. > > I don't think that's a valid argument. The problem I see is that there are > several ways to place free text into a tune, but they are not equivalent, > and none are meant for placing free text into a tune. > > Chord notation is not free text. It is a chord. There may be no > restriction to the syntax of a chord to be presented, but semantically, > it's a chord. Placing tempo information into a chord isn't a correct > semantic match. Quite true. The "_ " notation was proposed because people kept using the chord notation for things that weren't chords. > James Allwright recently answered a question of mine (based on a proposal > for a q: field) as follows: > > > > Would this make it impossible to transcribe music which is supposed to be > > > played "Placidly" in the main, except for a passage which is supposed > > to be > > > played "Excitedly"? > > > >Use "_Excitedly" in the middle of the tune and then go back with > >"_Placidly". > > My major objection to that is that "_Excitedly" and "_Placidly" are not > tempo indicators. They may print out in tadpoles as tempo indicators, but > they will not be read by human readers of the ABC notation, nor by playback > programs, as tempo indicators. > > Should we expect a live musician, playing from ABC notation, to treat > "_Excitedly" as a tempo indicator? It doesn't look like > one. Semantically, it isn't one. Semantically, it's something else. In practical terms, I think we are talking about having different fonts for different things in a printing program. I also think we have to assume that a player can use context i.e. infer a meaning from a word, which is presumably how they did things in the old days of handwritten manuscripts. yaps supports ! ! for "musical instructions" which seems to be the closest thing to a text tempo field and, yes, you can give it its own font. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
