Bert Van Vreckem writes: | | 2. Note lengths: seems to be incomplete. There's no mention of things | like A3/2, only in the broken rhythm example. A3/2 should obviously be | parsed, but how far should an abc program go? Is A1531/3001 valid or | not? Best to clarify this and define what's legal and what not.
This has always been one of my favorite examples of a case where abc can express something that traditional staff notation can't. And we've seen a few examples of this on this list. Some of the midi-to-abc translators will produce such notation, when the midi originated as input from an instrument. All we really need is the comment that, while arbitrary fractions are legal in abc, it is unwise to use any denominator that is not a power of 2, because the result can't be translated to staff notation. More problematic (because novices are likely to do this) is a note length like 5/4, which looks simple, but also can't be written as a single note in standard staff notation. I think that some abc programs try to translate such things into sets of tied notes, but we can expect that few programs will ever do this. A general comment that "Note lengths that can't be translated to conventional staff notation should be avoided" is probably the best way to handle this. One of the routine observations from linguists is that, given any two languages, you can always find things in either that can't be accurately translated to the other. This is a problem that's not worth trying to solve. You won't succeed. The best you can do is note the problem and proceed. (One textbook example for English is the lack of any word that is the singular form of "cattle". Other languages have such words, and they can't be translated to English with a single word. But you aren't going to fix the English language; all you can do is chuckle and use a phrase that includes "or" for your translation.) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
