On Sat 25 May 2002 at 09:39AM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote: > > Actually, abc2midi formerly assumed R:Hornpipe whenever you used > "F > F". And then assumed a different split of time, which was > appropriate for the way someone somewhere plays hornpipes. > > And when the inconsistency between abc2midi and the standard was > pointed out, the author of abc2midi decided that consistency was more > important than correctness, so he provided a workaround, rather than a > fix.
The inconsistency is deliberate. The point is that when you play a hornpipe or anything else with dotted rhythm (or swing, or whatever you want to call it), keeping a 3:1 ratio is rather harder than keeping a 2:1 ratio and doesn't really add much musically apart from a certain pedantic pleasure in knowing that you are playing exactly what your notation says. This is why abc2midi makes the assumption that a>b is meant to be played as a 2:1 ratio. I think this is in accordance with the original spirit of '>' even if this is not spelt out in the standard. The effect of R:Hornpipe in abc2midi is to introduce '>' between 1/8 notes so that a piece written as a reel will come out sounding like a hornpipe. Because there is this aethetically displeasing discrepancy between notation and performance, I have taken the view that '>' is a function to be used only in a very specific setting and trying to generalize it for other uses is courting trouble. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
