On Tue, 28 May 2002, James Allwright wrote: > On Tue 28 May 2002 at 08:32AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > James Allwright wrote: > > > > >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. > > > > It sounds like you're saying that ">" cannot be used to notate the > > first notes of "Mari's Wedding" to play as I've always heard it > > played. This would be unacceptable. > > No-one else has used Mairi's Wedding to define the meaning of ">". > What ">" and "<" gives you in abc2midi is a notation for tunes in > 6/8 masquerading as tunes in 4/4. This covers hornpipes and probably > strathspays (though I can't tell since I don't get to hear very many > of those).
Strathspeys are definitely not "6/8 masquerading as 4/4". In most cases it would definitely be wrong to play them as 2-and-one (if I say "in all cases" someone'll dig up a counterexample. I wouldn't be suprised, they can be weird things) - much more like 3-and-one. I would question _your_ use of the word "notation", too :) I'd call it an interpretation of the notation. After all, your parser reads it as "note, greater/less than, note", and yaps displays it as we'd all expect :) (I've been looking at your parser recently - I'm in the process of borrowing it for an improved version of my tunes-comparison project; which should be ready for the web before long). -- Richard Robinson "The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
