Jack Campin wrote:

>> Secondly, it is MUCH easier for a staff-notation generator to suppress
>> the drawing of P: fields in every voice other than V:1 than it would
>> be for a player program to locate P: fields outside of the voice that
>> it is currently parsing and then figure out which point in the
>> current voice corresponds to that.
>
>Eh?  You'd have something like
>
>P:Trio
>V:1 x...
>V:2 y...
>V:3 z...
>
>and you've *already* parsed the P by the time you get to x, y, and z.

No.  Let's say that your "Trio" label comes in the middle of the tune:

V:1 a...
V:2 b...
V:3 c...
P:Trio
V:1 x...
V:2 y...
V:3 z...

The parser will parse the whole of V:1, then the whole of V:2, and will
not see the P: field until it's half way through V:3.  Remember that
the play parser operates on one voice at a time.


>>> Then, how is a player supposed to take advantage of having P: within
>>> the scope of V:?  It isn't that way in the header, so if I *do* write
>>> a piece where voice 1 has part order ABA and voice 2 has order CDCD,
>>> how do I specify that order in the header P: line?  If all the voices
>>> are supposed to have the *same* order, why do I have the apparent
>>> freedom to give each of them any order in the body, and how is this
>>> constraint meant to be checked?
>> Obviously you can't do that because all the voices share the same header.
>
>You could do it if you made the P header fields relative to voices,
>as you've decided to do with P's in the tune body.  The way you have
>it at present is inconsistent.

Current behaviour is absolutely consistent.  In the tune all fields
are voice-dependent, while in the header all fields (except V:) apply
to all voices.  What you are asking for is inconsistent, in that some
in-tune fields will apply to only one voice while others apply to all.

It might be possible to make part-order a sub-field of V: in the
header as you suggest below, in which case it would be voice-dependent,
but you would still have to put the in-tune P: fields in every voice.

>One place this occurs for real is in pieces built over a ground bass.
>I have seen several sets of these in the eighteenth century Scottish
>repertoire, and they are all notated as if they had ABC like this:
>
>   X:1
>   T:thingy
>   M:something
>   V:1      P:ACDE
>   V:2 bass P:BBBB
>   K:G minor % really - that's the key for 9 out of 10 of these things
>   [V:1] [P:A] ... ||
>   [V:2] [P:B] ... ||
>   %
>   [V:1] [P:C] ... ||
>   %
>   [V:1] [P:D] ... ||
>   %
>   [V:1] [P:E] ... ||
>
>that is, the ground is only written out once, under the melody of the
>first section.  BarFly currently forces the user to copy this out for
>every variation, taking nearly twice as much paper as necessary.

That's a different issue as we're now talking about display rather than
playing.

Phil Taylor


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Reply via email to