On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, [iso-8859-1] Erik Ronstr�m wrote: > My solution to this looks like this: when converting f^- | f to staff > notation, let the application "be aware" of the problem by writing a > sharp for both notes.
Ignoring for the present how much existing ABC might be broken by this, suppose it is decided that you have to write ^f-|^f. The notation software will omit the second sharp by default, in order to display the staff notation correctly. Now suppose you *want* the second sharp to be displayed, as a cautionary accidental. How could this be achieved? I think that much of this discussion of outlawing ^f-|f is an attempt to make ABC different, simply for the sake of making it different. I still don't understand what is *wrong* with defining ^f-|f as two f sharps tied together, or why ^f-|^f would be better. > why should we make abc a pseudo-staff-notation with the same flaws, > when we have the possibility to keep it as a stand alone, complete > notation with all it's advantages: easy to read, clearly defined and > usable both by humans and computers. Because it's too late? ABC has always been a pseudo-staff notation. It follows most of the staff notation rules regarding accidentals, ties, and barlines. In fact, part of the reason ABC is so "easy to read" (and easy to write) is *because* it follows these familiar rules. It would be a bad idea, IMHO, to start being inconsistent about it now. Besides which, it would take more than avoiding the ^f-|f "ambiguity" (which is not really ambiguous at all in staff notation; the rule just needs to be made explicit in the ABC standard and the problem is solved) to turn ABC into a "stand alone" notation, if there is such a thing. You would also have to get rid of the rule that accidentals continue to the end of the barline; and, for that matter, barlines themselves. Come to think of it, the concepts of "accidentals" and key signatures are very staff-centric as well, so let's get rid of the K: field and specify every sharp and flat explicitly. Do we really need different ways of writing the same note, though? Let's get rid of flats in favor of sharps. Better yet, let's just specify the frequency of every note in Hertz, so that ABC won't be ethnocentric. Now that we've gone this far, there's no need to call this "ABC" any more, since those letters no longer correspond to meaningful notation. Let's just call it "880Hz 987.8Hz 1046.5Hz" instead. True, we need to put a space between the frequencies so that there is no confusion, but since we don't need to use spaces to indicate staff-centric beaming any more, this is not a problem. What else can we eliminate... How about the M: field? Once the barlines are gone, it doesn't seem necessary. The Q: field is also redundant. Instead, let's just set a default note duration with the L: field, in microseconds. Now we don't need to think of things in terms of staff-centric "whole notes" and various multiples and subdivisions thereof. So, we've got frequency and duration covered. Now all that's missing is a way to express amplitude and timbre, but since the ABC standard never really supported dynamics or instrument definitions, I don't see that we need to go that far. There you go. A stand-alone, precise notation system. Happy now? :-) John To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
