Hi : I have been following, as a 'typical' abc user, this dialogue on abc standardization, but am starting to wonder whether you can succeed (and get consensus)without really knowing the makeup of the universal abc user group. Most of your emails have been way over my head and likely the heads of most who know little about music theory. Why don't you create a list of all the major functions/uses of abc and survey the ww abc users asking them to indicate which functions they use most frequently and which ones are of little or no interest. Obviously, the music academic types seem to be the most keen to upgrade the standard but I doubt that the "typical" user shares their zeal. The current standard suits my needs (in the instumental ITM world) reasonably well and, at my age, I doubt that I would ever need or utilize any of the 'complexity' that you are contemplating adding to the original standard. The current available software that utilizes the existing standard is also sufficient for me and it could take me the rest of my life to just listen to all the 12,000+ tunes, based on the original abc standard, using existing players. Finally, being an author of some abc software, I can definitely state that I doubt I will ever revise it to cater to any new and seemingly more complex standard. Good luck and I'll continue to follow your progress. Mike Casey
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