> On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 08:42:32PM +0200, Arent Storm wrote: > > > They are non standard in Western music, but you will > > > find something like [K:D _b _e ^f] often in e.g. > > > Klezmer (Ahavoh Rabboh) or Arabic music (Maqam Hedjaz). > > > > My first thing will always be to remove any non standard > > explicit accidentals, replacing them with inline accidentals > > and inform the player textwise that he/she is playing an unusual > > mode/key. Anyway lots of klezmer tunes change mode/key > > every few bars so the need for non-classical is rather limited IMO. > > The mode/key/accidental stuff is way too complicated for the > > average folk player (in the Netherlands anyway - wer'e not > > so smart you know ;-) > > I remember when I first heard mention that "modes" could be introduced > into the ABC key signature (or maybe it was when I discovered they had > been. I don't remember it *that* well). > > I felt the same about that. Complicated, academic, abstract, who on earth > needs it ? But I had a poke around with it, one rainy Sunday afternoon, > just to see what happened. And I discovered, to my suprise, that it worked > better than what I knew. It was a better description. I could get the key > signature I wanted _and_ say what the tonic was, both in one move. I felt (more or less) the same for the modes part. But they fit in with the regular (classical) key-notation, so I decided to signal the mode-part in MusiCAD (textwise) as I expect very few of my users to dig into the abc and discover the key to be D-dorian instead of C Which *is* musically relevant but *isn't* notationally relevant.
> So it became worthwhile to understand them; and now, years later, I can > even remember whether I mean dorian or mixolydian without having to look > them up, though I don't use the others so much. > > If there are people who use ABC, or are considering using ABC, > for music where non-standard signatures are less non-standard, > they might make the same discovery. For the church-modes part I agree, the explicit accidental signature will confuse anyone trying to play the music from paper (except for the authors band perhaps).... Arent To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
