I love it. This was a great challenge. Thanks. John Walsh offered:
>A Christmas challenge: find the shortest abc for the music to >the Twelve Days of Christmas. (all verses, & all extensions >suggested in this thread are welcome, of course.) I made several false starts, finding myself tripped up by the odd syllables in "seven" and "eleven." The challenge doesn't make clear whether the goal is music notation output or sound output, and they are handled very differently. My solution gives correct sound output (in BarFly, not strictly kosher abc 1.6) but doesn't attempt correct music notation output. Therefore I chose M:none to deal with the mix of 4/4 and 3/4 measures. Also note I sidestepped the "nested repeats" issue entirely by using P: (I think this makes for shorter abc). The challenge also doesn't specify how "the shortest abc" is to be defined. Fewest characters? Mine can be shortened by shortening the T: field and removing the bar lines, comments, and spaces between 8th notes that I included for clarity. Here it is: X:1 T:Twelve Days of Christmas M:none P:AEBFECGFECGGFECKECHKEBIHKECHIHKECHHIHKECHHHIHKEDIHHHIHKECJIHHHIHKE K:G P:A % First day DD|D2GGG2FG|ABcAB3c| P:B % 2nd, 7th days DD|DDGGG2FG|ABcAB4| P:C % days 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 DD|D2GGG2FG|ABcAB4| P:D % 11th day (3DDD|DDGGG2FG|ABcAB2>>d2| P:E % Partridge in a pear tree d2ec BGA2|G6| P:F % 2 Turtle doves and a d2ABc2Bc| P:G % Calling birds, French hens d2ABc2| P:H % 6, 8, 9, 10 Xers Xing (or X a-Y-ing) d2AB cA| P:I % Seven and (e)-leven Xers Xing (or X a-Y-ing) dd AB cA| P:J % 12 Lords a-leaping, e-(leven) d2AB cA/d/| P:K % 5 Gold rings, ... and a d4e2^c2|d8|dcBAG2|c2E2G2|AGFED2Bc| ______ /\/\/\/\ <______> | | | | | David Barnert <______> | | | | | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <______> | | | | | Albany, N.Y. <______> \/\/\/\/ Ventilator Concertina Bellows Bellows (Vocation) (Avocation) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
