Atte writes: | | > - people who can't distinguish between a single standard that allows | > chords to be machine-readable, and 'you've left my pet notation out' | | I also proposed one, didn't catch on. I don't think the reason is the | above. I think only very few people use abc for jazz.
This is a rather succinct description of the situation. What I'd suggest is that: 1. ABC users who play jazz and other styles that need "fancy" chords should discuss the subject with the idea of coming up with one machine-readable chord standard, and 2. Musicians who don't need such chords should be casually ignored. I'd actually put myself in the latter category. I mostly play "folk" music. In a number of radically different styles perhaps, but none of them makes any use of complex chords. I often find myself casually ignoring chord modifiers like '7', on the grounds that such things just muddy the sound and shouldn't be used unless they contribute something useful such as a hint of a key change. So you should just ignore me. ;-) Probably all the current software understands this minimum form of a chord inside double quotes: 1. A letter [A-G] giving the root of the chord; 2. A '#' or 'b' for sharp or fla; 3. One of 'm', 'min', 'maj', 'dim' or 'aug'; 4. A number (7, 9, ...) to indicate the "top" of the chord. Some but not all programs also recognize: 5. '/' followed by a bass note [A-G] and accidental [#b]; 6. (...) giving alternate chords. We might add that the case of the root and bass note letter is not significant. This is a good idea because current practice isn't at all consistent here, and it doesn't really make much difference. Note that this does eliminate the common practice of using lower case to mean "minor". As elegant as that might be, we're probably better off if abc doesn't adopt it. (Just as we should officially ban the use of "B" to mean B flat and "H" to mean B. ;-) I'd suggest that we treat these as the *only* things that are actually defined in the abc chord notation as of April 2002. Then we turn the subject over to a cabal of musicians who need fancier chords, and let them come up with a good way to handle the rest of the job. The two constraints are that it must be plain text and reasonably easy for a computer to parse. It need not agree with any current notation in printed music, though of course it's best if we can get as close to common practice as we can with plain text. Membership in the chord cabal should be voluntary, but anyone who ever says "Who needs it?" should be summarily evicted. We want a way to notate whatever chords people think they need. Those who don't need them don't have to use them. The best place to start might be to list the features that are needed in the eventual full chord notation. (Well, maybe someone might want to say what I've missed in the above summary. ;-) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
