Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Jeff Bigler]

> From: Laura Conrad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 30 Jul 2003 09:19:29 -0400
> 
> Besides, those of us who typically read from only treble and bass
> clefs, can't ever remember which line an alto C clef is on.

This reminds me of a conductor joke that's popular among us violists.
However, I'll have to redefine a couple of symbols first, so everyone
can parse the joke:

U:Q=+question+
U:A=+answer+

Q: What's the difference between alto clef and ancient Greek?

A: Some conductors can actually read ancient Greek.


Jeff

P.S.  I'm about a week behind in my email.  Apologies if the ABC
  standard for decorations is no longer +...+ ;-)
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 11:01:34AM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
> > "Richard" == Richard Robinson
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> Richard> If so, maybe what we're actually talking about is a
> Richard> distinction between 2 parsing methods - unroll into a
> Richard> stream and then re-parse, vs do something with each
> Richard> symbol in the order (moreorless) given by the ABC. ??
> 
> No, we're really talking about a parsing method that insists on
> getting an absolute note value (so you have to know what accidentals
> the transcriber *meant* in addition to the ones he or she typed) and
> one that only cares about what the note looks like on the page (so you
> can assume that if the transcriber didn't type one, they don't want to
> see one).  

You're right, of course. So the underlying namespaces would just be
something like

%%sound
and
%%sight

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

> "Richard" == Richard Robinson
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Richard> Ah. Interesting, yes. Also, come to think of it, ny
Richard> abc_compare, which borrowed the abcMIDI parser, to unroll
Richard> ABC into a stream of notes.  Does abc2ly also unroll
Richard> repeats, etc ?

Optionally.  There's an argument to the repeat command that will do
it.  So the kosher way to get a MIDI file that has the repeats in it,
while having the conventional music notation that has the repeats
indicated with |: and :| is to have two separate \score blocks, one of
which has the same notes but the repeats have the "unfold" option.  I
don't know that anyone's really happy with this.  The way I deal with
it is to use the lilypond MIDI file to do proofreading, where
repeating the same notes you've already found to be accurate is a
time-waster, and generate the performing MIDI file, where you want the
repeats unfolded, with abc2midi.

Richard> If so, maybe what we're actually talking about is a
Richard> distinction between 2 parsing methods - unroll into a
Richard> stream and then re-parse, vs do something with each
Richard> symbol in the order (moreorless) given by the ABC. ??

No, we're really talking about a parsing method that insists on
getting an absolute note value (so you have to know what accidentals
the transcriber *meant* in addition to the ones he or she typed) and
one that only cares about what the note looks like on the page (so you
can assume that if the transcriber didn't type one, they don't want to
see one).  

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 10:42:15AM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
> > "Richard" == Richard Robinson
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> 
> Richard> Though, yes, the use of the existing %%midi namespace
> Richard> would be a clue - helpful in general (since it gives a
> Richard> rough idea of what sort of work it does) and misleading
> Richard> in particular (since, as Phil says, it's all player apps
> Richard> that would need to look at it, not just midi ones).
> 
> It isn't just player apps -- it's any app that expects an absolute
> note value rather than a description of the note's appearance on the
> staff.  So abc2ly, which you would normally think of as a typesetter,
> needs it just as much, and for the same reason, as abc2midi.

Ah. Interesting, yes. Also, come to think of it, ny abc_compare, which
borrowed the abcMIDI parser, to unroll ABC into a stream of notes.
Does abc2ly also unroll repeats, etc ? If so, maybe what we're actually
talking about is a distinction between 2 parsing methods - unroll into a
stream and then re-parse, vs do something with each symbol in the order
(moreorless) given by the ABC. ??

Not that I'd suggest phrasing any possible structuring of %% namespaces
like that ...

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

> "Richard" == Richard Robinson
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


Richard> Though, yes, the use of the existing %%midi namespace
Richard> would be a clue - helpful in general (since it gives a
Richard> rough idea of what sort of work it does) and misleading
Richard> in particular (since, as Phil says, it's all player apps
Richard> that would need to look at it, not just midi ones).

It isn't just player apps -- it's any app that expects an absolute
note value rather than a description of the note's appearance on the
staff.  So abc2ly, which you would normally think of as a typesetter,
needs it just as much, and for the same reason, as abc2midi.



-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 02:51:45PM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
> > "Phil" == Phil Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> Phil> Also I don't like the idea of
> 
> Phil> %%MIDI nobarlines
> 
> Phil> because it means something totally at odds with what it says.  Bar
> Phil> lines have nothing to do with midi - the midi standard provides
> Phil> no way of representing them because they are a purely visual
> Phil> feature of printed music
> 
> I think it's a pretty good description of the music that would want to
> tell a MIDI (or lilypond) writing program what I want to tell it,
> though.  
> 
> The barlines are not purely visual, because any program that
> translates standard notation into MIDI has to use them to decide how
> to interpret the accidentals.
> 
> Phil> If you want to specify that accidentals are non-persistent you
> Phil> should not use %%midi becuase the implication is that a program
> Phil> which plays abc directly without using midi can ignore it.
> 
> I'm perfectly willing to live with some other terminology if other
> people feel it communicates the idea better.  The standard does need a
> way to communicate this idea, though, and as far as I know, this is
> the only method in current use.

Though, since this would be new behaviour, which programmers would have
to write in, they could look for any %%magicword at all to trigger it ?
Though, yes, the use of the existing %%midi namespace would be a clue -
helpful in general (since it gives a rough idea of what sort of work it
does) and misleading in particular (since, as Phil says, it's all player
apps that would need to look at it, not just midi ones).

I really think we should have some thought for this question of "proper"
namespaces. The original use of them, in abcMIDI, had
%%MIDI thisthatortheother
which was a good idea, to make it clear what area they were in.
Then the typesetters added a _lot_ of others with no such information
about what sort of uses they apply to. More recently we've had some
proposals for %%abc-thisthatorthother, and just now I see more proposals
for some without any particular namespace.

If these are only ever going to be used by one program, this may not
be a particular problem; anybody that gets bored with picking their
"interesting" ones out of this disparate chaos can invent their own
identifier and ignore all the others. But if there is any idea
that any of these should be understandable to more than one program,
then I think it would be a really good idea if we could introduce some
organisation into this. I would say "before it gets too late", but I've
said that in the past, and it's later now, and there are more of them.

Like, the case in question maybe should be
%%play nobarlines
if it applies to all player programs. And then midi programs would know
that these apply to them and would also look for
%%midi whatever
which apps that play, eg direct to the speaker, could ignore.

And we'd have things like 
%%abc include 
%%abc version X.Y.z-sectb_breakaway_faction_of_3rd_Sept_2004
%%abc charset
for things which do refer to the ABC itself (I've followed the namespace
id with a space rather than Irwin's hyphen, btw, just so I can show it
the same as the original "midi", to try and sneak in the idea that these
things could all be parseable in the same way).

(Small note. %%abc-copyright isn't right. Maybe some people would have
a need to coyright the abc itself, but there is also a need to record
the copyright of the tune itself; "abc" isn't the right namespace for
this, it has nothing to do with abc)

I am aware that this would create a problem with the existing ones that
don't use this technique. And if we go on inventing these willynilly,
it'll grow up to be a bigger problem.  While we seem to be busy redefining
everything anyway, let's get it right. I mean, do we really want 
some of these to have  namespace specifier and others not to, but just
to throw %%papersize, %%loudness, %%staves, %%continueall, %%infoline,
for example, all into the same space ? Is it clear and simple, for either
humans or applications ? 




-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

> "Phil" == Phil Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>> Not having barlines is very different from not having a meter.  Most
>> Renaissance tunes have a meter of C, C|, 3/2 or something, but they
>> either didn't use barlines at all or used them for something very
>> different from telling you where the effects of an accidental end.

Phil> M:3/2 normally means three half notes per measure, 

There we go with that word normal again.  Before the 18th century,
there was nothing 'normal' about a measure -- they just didn't exist.
Which doesn't mean that composers didn't use the time signature to
tell performers what the meter of the piece was.  

Phil> so what does the metre mean in the context of a piece of
Phil> music which is not divided into measures?

That you expect things to be in groups of three or four or whatever.
For instance, you wouldn't say there was nothing triple about a jig
even if it were written in a notation that didn't put barlines every N
eighth notes, would you?

Phil> Also I don't like the idea of

Phil> %%MIDI nobarlines

Phil> because it means something totally at odds with what it says.  Bar
Phil> lines have nothing to do with midi - the midi standard provides
Phil> no way of representing them because they are a purely visual
Phil> feature of printed music

I think it's a pretty good description of the music that would want to
tell a MIDI (or lilypond) writing program what I want to tell it,
though.  

The barlines are not purely visual, because any program that
translates standard notation into MIDI has to use them to decide how
to interpret the accidentals.

Phil> If you want to specify that accidentals are non-persistent you
Phil> should not use %%midi becuase the implication is that a program
Phil> which plays abc directly without using midi can ignore it.

I'm perfectly willing to live with some other terminology if other
people feel it communicates the idea better.  The standard does need a
way to communicate this idea, though, and as far as I know, this is
the only method in current use.

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Arent Storm]

From: "Phil Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Also I don't like the idea of
> 
> %%MIDI nobarlines
> 
> because it means something totally at odds with what it says.  Bar
> lines have nothing to do with midi - the midi standard provides
> no way of representing them because they are a purely visual
> feature of printed music
> 
> If you want to specify that accidentals are non-persistent you
> should not use %%midi becuase the implication is that a program
> which plays abc directly without using midi can ignore it.
Seconded

Arent

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

>> "Wil" == Wil Macaulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>Wil> Do we lose anything if we couple this to M:none? or do we
>Wil> need to be able to specify
>Wil> both a meter (M:C comes to mind) and separately the behaviour of
>Wil> accidentals?
>
>Yes.
>
>Not having barlines is very different from not having a meter.  Most
>Renaissance tunes have a meter of C, C|, 3/2 or something, but they
>either didn't use barlines at all or used them for something very
>different from telling you where the effects of an accidental end.

M:3/2 normally means three half notes per measure, so what does the
metre mean in the context of a piece of music which is not divided
into measures?

Also I don't like the idea of

%%MIDI nobarlines

because it means something totally at odds with what it says.  Bar
lines have nothing to do with midi - the midi standard provides
no way of representing them because they are a purely visual
feature of printed music

If you want to specify that accidentals are non-persistent you
should not use %%midi becuase the implication is that a program
which plays abc directly without using midi can ignore it.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>In Ryan's case, the p.37 examples do have a  double  bar  before  the
>repeat colon - at the end of the preceding staff.  This may have been
>the origin of that perverse :|!: example that we saw recently. If the
>! means "new staff", this would exactly match what Ryan did.

It's also what ABC2Win does.  I was astonished to find that now it
also works in BarFly when it's in its emulate ABC2Win mode.

>In any case, it's pretty clear that publishers' notation and people's
>interpretation  of repeats are both far from standardized.  No matter
>what we do or say, people will type the abc that looks like their own
>(mis)interpretation  of any supposed standard.  Printed music doesn't
>much work as a guideline, because it is so varied, and people can say
>"Look, these books do it that way, so it must be standard".
>
>People writing abc players have a problem ...

Not really.  Just treat any of :| |] [| || or |: as a start of repeat
when playing.  It just means that you can't use any of those symbols
within a repeated section.  The only one I would want to use is the
double bar, and I've never yet seen a piece of music which did that
(but thousands of tunes where the above rule works correctly).

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Wil Macaulay]

Strikes me that the %%MIDI directives are the equivalent of an audio 
stylesheet...

wil

Laura Conrad wrote:

"Wil" == Wil Macaulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
   

   Wil> Do we lose anything if we couple this to M:none? or do we
   Wil> need to be able to specify
   Wil> both a meter (M:C comes to mind) and separately the behaviour of
   Wil> accidentals?
Yes.

Not having barlines is very different from not having a meter.  Most
Renaissance tunes have a meter of C, C|, 3/2 or something, but they
either didn't use barlines at all or used them for something very
different from telling you where the effects of an accidental end.
 

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

> "Wil" == Wil Macaulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Wil> Do we lose anything if we couple this to M:none? or do we
Wil> need to be able to specify
Wil> both a meter (M:C comes to mind) and separately the behaviour of
Wil> accidentals?

Yes.

Not having barlines is very different from not having a meter.  Most
Renaissance tunes have a meter of C, C|, 3/2 or something, but they
either didn't use barlines at all or used them for something very
different from telling you where the effects of an accidental end.


-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Wil Macaulay]

Do we lose anything if we couple this to M:none? or do we need to be 
able to specify
both a meter (M:C comes to mind) and separately the behaviour of 
accidentals?

Laura Conrad wrote:

I don't see any discussion of the relationship between accidentals and
barlines.  This is important, because in order to translate ABC, which
records the appearance of a note in staff notation, into, e.g., MIDI
or lilypond, which records the absolute pitch of the note, you need to
know how long an accidental persists.  The _de facto_ standard, as
introduced by me into both abc2midi and abc2ly, is that the directive:
   %%MIDI nobarlines

indicates that there are no barlines dividing the measures, so an
accidental applies only to the note it's on, and not to all the notes
until the end of the piece.  It's really necessary to be able to
specify this.
 

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

BarryBarry Say says:
| Bernard Hill wrote on 29 Jul 2003
|
| > ... We are talking about
| >
| >  | . |  |  :|
| >  | . |  |  :|
| >
| > which is ambiguous. And should maybe be
| >
| >  | . |  |  :|
| > |:.. | . |  |  :|
| >
|
| In British traditional music as notated for at least the past half century, this 
form is not
| ambiguous but rather normal notation for 4 bars repeated followed by 4 bars
| repeated. I can see that this has limitations, but it presents a simple, elegant and
| traditional notation, and I am loathe to move away from this as it would make old
| manuscripts and publications less comprehensible. I know that other cultures  have
| different conventions in this area, and I think that both forms should be admissable.
|
| Music notation is based on convention, and happily there is no absolute way of
| notating music, thus allowing development of interpretation.

Yup.  And we might notice that, for a music formatter,  one  possible
approach  is  to  just  display  something  that  matches  the input.
Interpreting it is Someone Else's Problem.

But an abc player program does have a problem, because  it  needs  to
decide how to interpret such things. The obvious thing is a heuristic
that infers the missing repeat.  In the above case,  this  is  fairly
simple,  but  it's easy to construct cases that would probably fool a
program.

Also, I wonder about the claim that the above first form is common in
"British" music.  I've seen it often enough. But I've seen a lot that
do is something slightly subtler, using a bare ':' without the  usual
fat bar line at the left end of the second section. This can be a bit
difficult to spot, needless to say.

Checking some books on my shelf, I see that Tom Anderson's  "Hand  me
doon  da  fiddle"  follows  the first of the above styles.  There are
never any bars (single or double) or repeat signs at the left edge of
a staff.

In Mel Bay's (very nicely done) reprint of Ryan's Mammoth Collection,
flipping  it open I note that on page 37, 5 of the 7 tunes indicate a
repeat by a bare ':' at the left edge.  On other  pages,  you  see  a
thin-fat  double  bar  before  the repeat colon.  So Ryan wasn't very
consistent.

I also have CRE 1-5 at hand.  Here, each  volume  formats  the  music
differently.   In  vol.1,  they  solve  the  repeat  problem by never
starting any section after the first at the left edge. In vol.2, they
do something rather curious: Only the first staff has a clef, and the
rest start with a bar line (which is fat-thin for the start of a  new
section). Then comes the key signature. If the section is repeated, a
':' comes after the key sig.  For tunes in D, that little  ':'  often
nearly disappears against the two sharps.

Similar  "interesting"  notation  is  used  in  other  books  on   my
bookshelf.   And  part  of the confusion is indicated by the frequent
comment here that repeats should go back to the preceding double bar.
This implies that a lot of people think that a double bar is a repeat
symbol.  But, at least in the above two cases, this  is  clearly  not
true.   And in general, it's the colon that is the repeat symbol.  It
will usually be after a double bar, true, but the double bar marks  a
phrase  boundary, not a repeat boundary.  And some publishers like to
separate the colon from the preceding double bar, producing a  rather
insignificant little ':' next to the key signature.

In Ryan's case, the p.37 examples do have a  double  bar  before  the
repeat colon - at the end of the preceding staff.  This may have been
the origin of that perverse :|!: example that we saw recently. If the
! means "new staff", this would exactly match what Ryan did.

In any case, it's pretty clear that publishers' notation and people's
interpretation  of repeats are both far from standardized.  No matter
what we do or say, people will type the abc that looks like their own
(mis)interpretation  of any supposed standard.  Printed music doesn't
much work as a guideline, because it is so varied, and people can say
"Look, these books do it that way, so it must be standard".

People writing abc players have a problem ...


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[abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III - review

[Arent Storm]

* I think it would be wise to explicitely reserve the use of nonmentioned
letters E, Y lowercase letters.
Move ''exended information fields'' paragraph to front, just after the normal
ones

* irregular compound meter: two ways of display
1) 3+2+2/8 displayed as is
2)   (3+2+2)/8 displayed as 7/8

*G: group; clarify (I still don't get its definition) or explicit allow any
useage...

*H:is (the only?) field that can contimue on the next line without
repeat of the H: ?

*K: field move all the mode stuff, pipers stuff etc. to an appendix.
allow mode= signature= and depricate previous use of
keysigs mode fields etc.

*w: to appendix

* Tune-fields: rename to "Use of fields within body", explicit note
which fields may be used in-tune.

* ~ I always thought that ~ is used for a prall-trill by default.
Hardly anybody will know what an Irish-roll is (is it eatable?)

*chordsymbols (rather than accompaniment chords).
Note that programs will regard anything written between
double quotes, notn starting with one of the special
characters  as a chord. (there quite a few chord notations
out there... being not compatible at all;
so leave it to the interpreteing program to do whatever
it sees fit best.)
That done, just discard any not agreed on examples
of chords ( C C# G7 Bbm Ebm7) would do IMO,
But as this will reraise previous discussions make a statement
like 'programs should treat chord symbols quite liberately'

* clefs:
Is "K: Am transpose=-2 " illegal where
"K: Am treble transpose=-2 " is not?
since "clefname" starts the specication
(I'd rather like to see clef=clefname than clef alone
there are not many abc tunes in the wild using
other clefs than treble yet so...
The K: syntax is complicated enough already)
Allow for more than ''the 7'' keys (clef=clefname will do so)
will ensure forward compatibility & easy parsing

*voices
state that all voices to be mentioned in the abc-body have to be declared in the
header when using the [V:ID] syntax, where each ID will be referenced over and
over.

*special characters
Reserve some unicode encoding scheme for future enhancements
(forward compatibility) So characters like copyright signs, trademark
or whatever may be used in the (near) future:
proposal: \$;
Current (ABC2) implementations should just ignore it, replace with
some other sign or simply ignore it (but should parse the syntax)
for the time being and implement it in version 3 or so.
(please deprecate the archaic and insufficient octal seqences!!!)

*reserved characters
Try to make clear where/why which characters is reserved.
Even better: reserve characters in a specialized context.
- global
- within body
- within header
- within textstrings
- within w: and/or W: lines
reserved syntax would be a nice thing to have.
Knowing which generic syntax might be used in the future will render software
useable for a longer time.

*stylesheets
The draft suggests that %%staves is likely to be moved to
a stylesheet. So a stylesheet gets firmly boud to a specific
abc-tune. I think that's a *bad* idea.
The way CSS-sheets are usually used is that multiple
HTML files reference the CSS for layout purposes.
The %%staves example does not fit in that way at all.
Fonts, papersizes, spacing do.
 %%text, %%vskip, %%newpage etc certainly do not.
Programs should provide a list of stylesheet defaults
(so the need arises for a complete current list of ABC2-directives)

*special characters:
why use = for a macron and/or stroke through
 - or _ is more logical

The oe ligature is missing (fine to me as there is
a readable workaround for it).
It would violate the rules to allow \oe but on the
other hand e-ring is not used anywhere (is it?)

z-circumflex is not available in latin-extended-A
(especially not as it typesetted here ;-)

My 2 (or 3) cents

Arent



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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

I don't see any discussion of the relationship between accidentals and
barlines.  This is important, because in order to translate ABC, which
records the appearance of a note in staff notation, into, e.g., MIDI
or lilypond, which records the absolute pitch of the note, you need to
know how long an accidental persists.  The _de facto_ standard, as
introduced by me into both abc2midi and abc2ly, is that the directive:

%%MIDI nobarlines

indicates that there are no barlines dividing the measures, so an
accidental applies only to the note it's on, and not to all the notes
until the end of the piece.  It's really necessary to be able to
specify this.

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

I notice that the clefs section uses only a small number of arbitrary
names, and doesn't allow for specifying shapes on lines.  I think you
should also allow:

G1, G2,...G5
F1, F2,...F5
C1, C2,...C5

Or at least, make C, G, and F names as well as treble, alto, etc.

For the C clefs in particular, all 5 lines are in fact used in
Renaissance music, and limiting the notation to 7 named clefs is a
problem.  I understand that you can in fact say "alto 5", or alto
middle=F (or is it middle=F,?) to indicate a C clef on the fifth line,
but this is really counterintuitive.  It's much clearer to say, "I'm
transcribing this from a part with a C clef on the fifth line," than
to say "Here is a funny alto clef that's on the fifth line instead of
the third", which makes it not an alto clef at all.

Besides, those of us who typically read from only treble and bass
clefs, can't ever remember which line an alto C clef is on.

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Arent Storm]

From: "Bernard Hill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III


> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Walsh
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >   Correction: in Irish music, a roll is a specific way of playing
> >several repeated notes, not a general ornament on a given note.  It's
> >basic to the music, which is why it's part of abc.  I'm not at all
> >surprised rolls aren't in the standard notation texts.  Matter of fact,
> >I'd be surprised if they were.
> 
> Then I suggest the term "roll" in the standard be changed to "Irish
> Roll" or otherwise commented on in a footnote. In normal music a "roll"
> means something quite different.

hear hear!
BTW, what's normal music ? ;-)

> I implemented a roll as a tremolo (and it sounded good!) by just working
> from the standard.
> 
> You *have* to make your standards document intelligible by "normal"
> musicians if you want the abc standard to be taken up by a wider musical
> community than that represented here.
I second that!

Arent

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes
>Bernard Hill wrote on 29 Jul 2003
>
>
>> I did not say "beginning of a piece" I said "beginning of a section". It
>> has always been standard notation to assume the first repeat is from the
>> beginning of the work. We are talking about
>> 
>>  | . |  |  :|
>>  | . |  |  :|
>> 
>> which is ambiguous. And should maybe be
>> 
>>  | . |  |  :|
>> |:.. | . |  |  :|
>> 
>
>In British traditional music as notated for at least the past half century, this 
>form is not 
>ambiguous but rather normal notation for 4 bars repeated followed by 4 bars 
>repeated. I can see that this has limitations, but it presents a simple, elegant 
>and 
>traditional notation, and I am loathe to move away from this as it would make 
>old 
>manuscripts and publications less comprehensible. I know that other cultures  
>have 
>different conventions in this area, and I think that both forms should be 
>admissable.
>
>Music notation is based on convention, and happily there is no absolute way of 
>notating music, thus allowing development of interpretation.

Very true. However your notation must be unambiguous or contain a
footnote to say what is going on. Give the above to a pianist to vamp
and he will stop at the end with a puzzled look.

And all for want of a simple |: ? Is it worth adding to confusion?



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Walsh
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>   Correction: in Irish music, a roll is a specific way of playing
>several repeated notes, not a general ornament on a given note.  It's
>basic to the music, which is why it's part of abc.  I'm not at all
>surprised rolls aren't in the standard notation texts.  Matter of fact,
>I'd be surprised if they were.

Then I suggest the term "roll" in the standard be changed to "Irish
Roll" or otherwise commented on in a footnote. In normal music a "roll"
means something quite different.

I implemented a roll as a tremolo (and it sounded good!) by just working
from the standard.

You *have* to make your standards document intelligible by "normal"
musicians if you want the abc standard to be taken up by a wider musical
community than that represented here.

Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[B . J . Say]

Bernard Hill wrote on 29 Jul 2003


> I did not say "beginning of a piece" I said "beginning of a section". It
> has always been standard notation to assume the first repeat is from the
> beginning of the work. We are talking about
> 
>  | . |  |  :|
>  | . |  |  :|
> 
> which is ambiguous. And should maybe be
> 
>  | . |  |  :|
> |:.. | . |  |  :|
> 

In British traditional music as notated for at least the past half century, this form 
is not 
ambiguous but rather normal notation for 4 bars repeated followed by 4 bars 
repeated. I can see that this has limitations, but it presents a simple, elegant and 
traditional notation, and I am loathe to move away from this as it would make old 
manuscripts and publications less comprehensible. I know that other cultures  have 
different conventions in this area, and I think that both forms should be admissable.

Music notation is based on convention, and happily there is no absolute way of 
notating music, thus allowing development of interpretation.

BarryBarry Say
--
B & J Say Smallpipes  - http://www.nspipes.co.uk
Making and Repairing Bagpipes in the Northumbrian Tradition.


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Walsh]

About rolls in Irish music:

>>...used more in fiddle or pipe music.
>
>Well it's not known in pipe music. They use a particular form of
>embellishment known generically as a doubling and it takes many forms,
>which are written out.
>

Depends on the pipes.  They're used a lot for uilleann pipes, but
not for highland pipes. Highland pipers tend to write out every last
gracenote, so there's no need for a roll sign.  And for that matter they
don't think of playing rolls. But a reel like the Wind that Shakes the
Barley, which starts:

|{g}A>{d}A{e}A{d}B {g}<{d}G {g}A2|{g}B>{d}B{e}A {g}Bc{g}d>>It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've 
>>>come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's 
>>>Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.
>> 
>> Thanks. But what does it mean? What would say an autoharp make of it,
>> say perhaps to make it a tremolo.
>
>It means "play any ornamentation here". The exact meaning is unspecified.

Correction: in Irish music, a roll is a specific way of playing
several repeated notes, not a general ornament on a given note.  It's
basic to the music, which is why it's part of abc.  I'm not at all
surprised rolls aren't in the standard notation texts.  Matter of fact,
I'd be surprised if they were.

The rhythmic effect is about the same on all instruments, give or
take a little, but the exact playing depends strongly on the instrument.
Breathnach, in Ceol Rince na hEireann V. 3, gives a table of rolls on the
different notes as played on different instruments.  For example, for the
long roll on A, written ~A3, he gives A2 {B}A/{G}A for the pipes and
whistle, ABA for the fiddle, and {AB}A>^GA for the accordion. (That's a
B/C button box, by the way; a piano accordion would probably play a G
natural instead of a G sharp. Whatever makes for the easiest fingering.)
To show how instrument-specific they can be, for the long roll on D on the
uilleann pipes---a cran, really---Breathnach gives D(8GDEFGEAD .  Three
guesses why we don't want to write these things out in detail!

If you want to know how rolls should sound on playback, check
Henrik's abcmus.  They sound fine there.

Autoharp? Hmm... chuckle... Well, that'd take some
experimentation, but I'd start with A>AA and work from there. Whatever,
~A3 is *not* played A3 (except as a variation, of course :-).

Cheers,
John Walsh  

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Phil Taylor writes:
| John Chambers wrote:
| >
| >The K:D=C_E_B^c example has a  natural  on  the  C  line  (below  the
| >staff),  flats  on  the E and B lines, and a sharp on the c line.  It
| >might be better to put them in a different order; I just expressed it
| >that way to make the scale clear.
|
| There's a problem here.  In conventional notation, sharps and flats
| in the key signature affect all octaves, unlike accidentals which
| affect only the octave marked.  You are proposing to change that
| rule, not just for abc but for standard notation too.

You're right.  That's a rule that isn't always followed  in
all  kinds of music.  Others here can supply examples.  And
even in "standard" Western music, this rule is sufficiently
poorly  followed  that many editors like to insert advisory
accidentals just to make sure that readers won't miss them.
This  may encourage people to believe that a different rule
applies.

| >Which does remind me that, although there's a conventional order  for
| >the  accidentals in classical key signatures, there really isn't such
| >an order for others.  Some particular musical  styles  might  have  a
| >conventional  order, but I don't know of them.  In recent music books
| >that use non-classical key signatures, there are several orders used.
| >I  think  they  position  them  so  that  they look good on the page,
| >whatever that might mean to the editor.
|
| The conclusion we came to the last time that this was discussed is that
| programs should draw the symbols in the order in which they are given in
| the abc.  That way the order is left up to the user.

A very good idea.  (That's what I did, of course. ;-)

There's a lot to be said for tools that do  what  you  tell
them,  even  if  someone else might think you're stupid for
doing it that way.  Then, if  it  doesn't  work,  it's  the
user's fault, not the fault of the programmer.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>Bernard Hill writes:
>| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>| >No, the accidentals should be case sensitive.  I might not care about
>| >this, personally, but I've seen the explanations.  When the topic has
>| >come up in the past, several people have pointed out that  there  are
>| >musical  styles  that  use different accidentals in two octaves.  The
>| >examples I've seen are from southern Asia.
>|
>| So how is it notated *as a key signature*? - because that's what we're
>| talking about. I am happy to have accidentals on individual notes but we
>| are talking ks here.
>| >
>| >I've seen this done in Middle-Eastern music too, with scales like:
>| >
>| >K:D=C_E_B^c
>| >
>| >where the C is different in the two octaves.
>| >
>| >We really shouldn't exclude these musical styles when it's so easy to
>| >include  them.   We've had inquiries on the list from people who play
>| >Persian and Indian classical music.  It would be interesting  to  see
>| >how well it works for them.
>|
>| Again, what's the ks?
>
>Well, it's real hard to draw in ascii ...
>
>The K:D=C_E_B^c example has a  natural  on  the  C  line  (below  the
>staff),  flats  on  the E and B lines, and a sharp on the c line.  It
>might be better to put them in a different order; I just expressed it
>that way to make the scale clear.

There's a problem here.  In conventional notation, sharps and flats
in the key signature affect all octaves, unlike accidentals which
affect only the octave marked.  You are proposing to change that
rule, not just for abc but for standard notation too.

I think there's a case here for using global accidentals distributed
through the music in addition to unconventional key signatures to
resolve this.

>Which does remind me that, although there's a conventional order  for
>the  accidentals in classical key signatures, there really isn't such
>an order for others.  Some particular musical  styles  might  have  a
>conventional  order, but I don't know of them.  In recent music books
>that use non-classical key signatures, there are several orders used.
>I  think  they  position  them  so  that  they look good on the page,
>whatever that might mean to the editor.

The conclusion we came to the last time that this was discussed is that
programs should draw the symbols in the order in which they are given in
the abc.  That way the order is left up to the user.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >The best comparison I've seen is:  Suppose you were to find
| >a piece of music written with two sharps (^f^c), and as you
| >played it, you realized that every G had a sharp added, and
| >it really was in A major. You'd probably be annoyed, right?
|
| Not particularly. Many editions of Bach have that, we classical
| musicians are quite used to it.

Yeah; that's a variant on the earlier note about him  using
a  dorian  keysig  for  minor.  In a couple of his works, I
think that he really did do a  count  of  accidentals,  and
picked  a  key  signature  that minimized them.  This isn't
surprising,  since  our  modern  concept  of  standard  key
signatures really hadn't stabilized then.

| .. Horn parts in orchestral music never have any key
| signature, the accidentals are all written in as they occur.

Yeah; someone pointed that out recently. To me, this argues
for an option telling the software to put the entire keysig
into the music.  An abc player has to do this in any  case.
It  would be really handy if an abc formatting program like
the abc2ps clones could also  do  this.   I  can  think  of
several   good   uses   for   it.   In  an  orchestral/band
arrangement, it could be useful to retarget a part to horns
by  by  changing  the transpose= term and asking for no key
signatures.  Then you could use a single  source  file  for
several arrangements for different sets of instruments.

| The notion of "tonic" is what I think you are referring to, and that is
| something that comes out of the actual music as heard, not the notation.
| However I concede it's a good thing to have in software which searches
| the K: field for tonics.

Staff notation does tell us that stating the tonic isn't an
absolute  necessity.   But  a lot of people seem to like to
know it.  And it can be nice information to have  available
when you're trying to put together a set of tunes.

| So what point are you making about the abc standard? I got a bit lost in
| that above :-)

Basically just arguing for a very flexible and general  way
of writing key sigs.  The K: approach is quite
useful, and probably covers at least  2/3  of  the  world's
music. But the proposed K: scheme
will handle most of the rest, especially  if  most  of  the
possible omissions are allowed.  (You obviously require the
tonic if you have a mode, but the  other  subsets  are  all
meaningful and useful.)

One of the interesting aspects of this was pointed  out  by
someone a while ago; it may have been Jack Campin.  This is
that, although a lot of  musical  styles  use  scales  that
don't  fit our 12-note octave, this turns out to not matter
too much.   Most  kinds  of  music  have  adopted  European
notation. This works because hardly anyone uses scales that
have more than 7 notes in an octave. The few that appear to
have  more  are like the classical minor, in that they have
different ascending and descending forms. But each of these
is at most 7 notes. So you can use the Western 7-note scale
with accidentals.  You just need to tell people how to tune
the  scale  at  the  beginning.   Most  musical styles have
standard names for such tunings.

So you rarely actually need "microtone" notation; you  just
use  a  conventional  scale name to map your scale to the 7
notes (plus accidentals) of the Western staff.

In fact, this would be a good use of the  mode=  term  that
has  been  proposed.   It would give a standard way to name
such scales.  Software aimed at these other musical  styles
could then display this name in the conventional manner.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 08:47:27PM +0100, Phil Taylor wrote:
> John Chambers wrote:
> >
> >that  it  would  be  nice  if  a  transcriber  could  write
> >something like:
> >
> >K:?Adorian
> >
> >This would mean that the transcriber is guessing  the  key.
> >The software would just ignore the '?', of course, and give
> >^f as the signature.  But it would warn interested  readers
> >(humand  and  software) that the transcriber had some doubt
> >about the accuracy of the key.
> >
> >Implementing this would be easy for most abc software: Just
> >ignore the '?'.
> 
> Unnecessary.  You can already write:
> 
> K: Adorian %?
> 
> but nobody does.  People who get the mode wrong are mostly
> not aware of their errors, and don't question their mode decisions
> as long as it gets the right key signature.

True. But what about us pedants who aren't sure they've got it right ?



-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 09:58:42PM +0200, Arent Storm wrote:
> 
> > 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)

No, not fair. It's there on the paper, it's clear what's meant. It might
*suprise* some poeple, if they haven't seen it before, but it's not
confusing. Except the business of learning to remember non-"standard"
groupings of notes, but if people want to play music that uses them,
why shouldn't it be possible to describe them ?

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 08:47:16PM +0100, Phil Taylor wrote:
> Richard Robinson wrote:
> 
> >> K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
> >
> >This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
> >signature would be
> >K:Bb ?
> >
> >Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.
> 
> You will find sevral examples of this in the Village Music Project.
> Which suggests, of course, that ABC2Win accepts it (horrors!).

I had to check to make sure I'm not doing it. Which (phew!) I'm not.

;-)

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >No, the accidentals should be case sensitive.  I might not care about
| >this, personally, but I've seen the explanations.  When the topic has
| >come up in the past, several people have pointed out that  there  are
| >musical  styles  that  use different accidentals in two octaves.  The
| >examples I've seen are from southern Asia.
|
| So how is it notated *as a key signature*? - because that's what we're
| talking about. I am happy to have accidentals on individual notes but we
| are talking ks here.
| >
| >I've seen this done in Middle-Eastern music too, with scales like:
| >
| >K:D=C_E_B^c
| >
| >where the C is different in the two octaves.
| >
| >We really shouldn't exclude these musical styles when it's so easy to
| >include  them.   We've had inquiries on the list from people who play
| >Persian and Indian classical music.  It would be interesting  to  see
| >how well it works for them.
|
| Again, what's the ks?

Well, it's real hard to draw in ascii ...

The K:D=C_E_B^c example has a  natural  on  the  C  line  (below  the
staff),  flats  on  the E and B lines, and a sharp on the c line.  It
might be better to put them in a different order; I just expressed it
that way to make the scale clear.

Which does remind me that, although there's a conventional order  for
the  accidentals in classical key signatures, there really isn't such
an order for others.  Some particular musical  styles  might  have  a
conventional  order, but I don't know of them.  In recent music books
that use non-classical key signatures, there are several orders used.
I  think  they  position  them  so  that  they look good on the page,
whatever that might mean to the editor.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Arent Storm writes:
>| From: "I. Oppenheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>|
>| > 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 ;-)
>
>The best comparison I've seen is:  Suppose you were to find
>a piece of music written with two sharps (^f^c), and as you
>played it, you realized that every G had a sharp added, and
>it really was in A major. You'd probably be annoyed, right?

Not particularly. Many editions of Bach have that, we classical
musicians are quite used to it.

>
>Now, you can't really claim  that  the  music  is  "wrong",
>because  all  the  notes  are right.  But there's something
>wrong with that key signature.
>
>The reason it's wrong is that what a key  signature  really
>should  do is tell you the accidentals that you need to get
>the basic scale, and then accidentals are  added  to  notes
>that are outside the scale. If something is in A major, you
>really should have ^g in the signature, because that's  the
>normal note in the scale.

Again, not really. Horn parts in orchestral music never have any key
signature, the accidentals are all written in as they occur.

>
>This is the  fundamental  argument  for  non-classical  key
>signatures. A tune in D hejaz (or freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh
>or whatever) is not G minor,  and  the  F  sharps  are  not
>altered notes. The basic scale really goes D _E ^F G A _B c
>d, and so those are the notes that the key signature should
>give  as the starting point.  Then notes outside that scale
>should have accidentals.

The notion of "tonic" is what I think you are referring to, and that is
something that comes out of the actual music as heard, not the notation.
However I concede it's a good thing to have in software which searches
the K: field for tonics.

>
>Key changes are a confounding issue in any  case.   In  our
>original  piece  in  A  major,  we  might  well  have a few
>sections that are in D major or B minor.  We could write in
>key  changes,  but for short passages, that's silly.  So we
>use accidentals for transient key changes, and  change  the
>signature only if a long section is in a different key.
>
>The same would probably apply in any musical style.  In the
>case of klezmer music, there's a problem that at least four
>different scales are in  routine  use,  and  key  or  scale
>changes  are  quite  frequent.   In  that  case, the common
>approach would be to throw up your hands at  the  mess  (no
>matter  how  nice a tune it is), and just pick a simple key
>signature.  It's the least messy solution.
>
>When I went through my klezmer stuff and  "declassicalized"
>the  key  signatures,  I found that I only wanted a "funny"
>key signature in about 1/3 of the  tunes.   The  rest  were
>either  in  a classical mode (major, minor, mixolydian), or
>were sufficiently mixed-mode that it didn't matter.
>
>But for tunes that really are in a non-classical scale,  it
>can  be a lot easier to read the music if the key signature
>doesn't lie to you.  Once you get used to such  scales,  of
>course.
>
>(And I doubt that the Dutch are any stupider than the  rest
>of us.  There are known klezmer musicians in NL ...  ;-)
>

So what point are you making about the abc standard? I got a bit lost in
that above :-)


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:26:21PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
>> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
>> >
>> >>  Now I don't really mind
>> >> having minor keys as they are well established, and maybe even the modes
>> >
>> >Very tolerant of you  ;)
>> 
>> Well they're not really needed now, are they? There's no separate
>> notation for them.
>
>What, modes ? There's a notation for them, yes. They're needed, yes.
>In that, it's another of those things that you can do with ABC key
>signatures that you can't do on paper. Same idea as the explicit
>accidentals, that you can give the tonic as well as the accidentals.

So what's the different notation between Am, C, Ephr, Ddor etc etc?


>
>
>> However I had not allowed for the use of abc files as a database. In
>> that case I can see a use for a tonic= or mode description.
>
>Ah. That's how we were talking at cross purposes, then. Yes, that's the
>point of things like that, that you can search a collection of ABC files
>for them. And that's one of the really huge advantages that ABC has, for
>my purposes.
>
>
>Perhaps this should have a mention in the spec., if people can currently
>overlook it ?
>
>
>> As I have proposed in another post, how about
>> 
>> K:_b^f^c tonic=A
>> 
>> ?
>
>I'd think the usage that John was clarifying (see the "K:E ^G"
>discussion) does the same job rather more neatly without breaking
>the orginal usage.
>

No, the original usage was that the ^G *modifies* the E major key sig in
K:E, not replaces it. Which is silly of course and why I originally
raised an eyebrow.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Bernard Hill writes:
>| My suggestion is that accidentals are in lower case, keys in upper.  And
>| if the key name is missing then C is assumed.
>|
>| K:A ^b is F# C# G# and Bb.
>| K:A =c is F# and G#
>| K:_b^f is Bb and F#
>|
>| K:_b is Bb
>| K:C _b
>| K:F
>|
>| and the last 3 are equivalent of course.
>
>No, the accidentals should be case sensitive.  I might not care about
>this, personally, but I've seen the explanations.  When the topic has
>come up in the past, several people have pointed out that  there  are
>musical  styles  that  use different accidentals in two octaves.  The
>examples I've seen are from southern Asia.

So how is it notated *as a key signature*? - because that's what we're
talking about. I am happy to have accidentals on individual notes but we
are talking ks here.
>
>I've seen this done in Middle-Eastern music too, with scales like:
>
>K:D=C_E_B^c
>
>where the C is different in the two octaves.
>
>We really shouldn't exclude these musical styles when it's so easy to
>include  them.   We've had inquiries on the list from people who play
>Persian and Indian classical music.  It would be interesting  to  see
>how well it works for them.

Again, what's the ks?


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:32:51PM +, John Chambers wrote:
>> 
>> It's quite logical.
>> 
>> K:A has a tonic but no scale information, so we assume major (^f^c^g).
>> 
>> K:Amix  has a tonic and a mode; the signature is ^f^c.
>> 
>> K:A_B   has a tonic and a key signature, which is _B
>> 
>> K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
>
>This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
>signature would be
>K:Bb ?
>
>Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.
>

The distinction between _B and Bb is the same as between a key signature
and an accidental so should be easy for a musician to understand...



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Phil Taylor writes:
| John Chambers wrote:
| >
| >K:?Adorian
| >
| >Implementing this would be easy for most abc software: Just
| >ignore the '?'.
|
| Unnecessary.  You can already write:
|
| K: Adorian %?
|
| but nobody does.  People who get the mode wrong are mostly
| not aware of their errors, and don't question their mode decisions
| as long as it gets the right key signature.

I think you're right.

Of course, they'd more likely write K:G in this case.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Arent Storm wrote:

> 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)

Klezmer musicians all use explicit key sigs, and so do
musicologists. In fact, it are only clasically trained
musicians that get confused from this notation, because
they do not understand how non-western scales are
structured.


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Phil Taylor writes:
| Richard Robinson wrote:
|
| >> K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
| >
| >This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
| >signature would be
| >K:Bb ?
| >
| >Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.
|
| You will find sevral examples of this in the Village Music Project.
| Which suggests, of course, that ABC2Win accepts it (horrors!).

Unless, of course, it accepts it as meaning a key signature
of  just  the  _B.  In that case, it'll be ahead of the new
standard.

;-)


Actually, I've seen this  sort  of  thing  mostly  on  some
mailing  lists  (such  as irtrad-l) where it slowly becomes
clear that there are a fair number of people who  read  and
write  abc  directly,  with  no abc software getting in the
way.  It really is an way to pass tunes from one person  to
the next.  And if your abc isn't standard, well, who cares?
As long as the (human) reader can  understand  it,  it  has
done the job.

I'm of mixed mind about this.  On the one hand, that's  how
abc  started,  and we have no real right to object.  On the
other hand, I've seen what happened to solfa notation ...


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
| >See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/gettune/0c54.html
|
| (And why sharpen the fs in stave 5?)

I looked at this, and decided that I don't know the tune.   Staff  5,
which  is in D major, sounds just find.  If I play it in D dorian, it
also sounds fine.  Switching between D hijaz and either D major or  D
dorian  are certainly conventional changes in that part of the world.
So what key should it be?

Also, A hijaz normally wouldn't have ^f.  This doesn't matter in  the
first  section,  since  there  are no f's at all.  I wonder about the
later sections, though. The first f that appears could be ^f, because
of the way the tune works.  I'd expect the rest to be =f, though.  If
they are ^f, I'd expect a different name for the scale.

Not that people are always very accurate about such things. Having ^f
in  an  A hijaz scale is really no odder than having an occasional ^g
in an A mixolydian scale.  It just seems unusual for the ^f to be  in
the key signature.

Or maybe the people who made the recording, who were Turkish gypsies,
use the term in an unusual way. Turks usually use "hijaz" pretty much
the same way that Arabs do, but there's the  common  gypsy  style  of
playing  fast  and  loose with all scales, and bending them around at
will. "Music should follow our wishes, not the other way around." Not
to mention "Who cares what you call it?" So they could well have used
the term because the scale starts A _B ^c d e, and the  6th  and  7th
are variable.  Sorta like classical minor.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>Richard Robinson writes:
>| >
>| > Of course,  such  searches  are  always  prone  to  failure
>| > because people just give the wrong key.  It's common to see
>| > K:G for tunes in E minor or A dorian.  There's not a lot we
>| > can do about this except try to educate people.
>|
>| If I had them locally (the tunes, not the people) it might be worth
>| considering a single-character key sig as a flag for "this might
>| need changing" :-)
>
>Well, this might not be all that bad an idea.  I've thought
>that  it  would  be  nice  if  a  transcriber  could  write
>something like:
>
>K:?Adorian
>
>This would mean that the transcriber is guessing  the  key.
>The software would just ignore the '?', of course, and give
>^f as the signature.  But it would warn interested  readers
>(humand  and  software) that the transcriber had some doubt
>about the accuracy of the key.
>
>Implementing this would be easy for most abc software: Just
>ignore the '?'.

Unnecessary.  You can already write:

K: Adorian %?

but nobody does.  People who get the mode wrong are mostly
not aware of their errors, and don't question their mode decisions
as long as it gets the right key signature.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

Richard Robinson wrote:

>> K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
>
>This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
>signature would be
>K:Bb ?
>
>Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.

You will find sevral examples of this in the Village Music Project.
Which suggests, of course, that ABC2Win accepts it (horrors!).

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:07:16PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> Richard Robinson writes:
> | >
> | > Of course,  such  searches  are  always  prone  to  failure
> | > because people just give the wrong key.  It's common to see
> | > K:G for tunes in E minor or A dorian.  There's not a lot we
> | > can do about this except try to educate people.
> |
> | If I had them locally (the tunes, not the people) it might be worth
> | considering a single-character key sig as a flag for "this might
> | need changing" :-)
> 
> Well, this might not be all that bad an idea.  I've thought
> that  it  would  be  nice  if  a  transcriber  could  write
> something like:
> 
> K:?Adorian
> 
> This would mean that the transcriber is guessing  the  key.
> The software would just ignore the '?', of course, and give
> ^f as the signature.  But it would warn interested  readers
> (humand  and  software) that the transcriber had some doubt
> about the accuracy of the key.
> 
> Implementing this would be easy for most abc software: Just
> ignore the '?'.

Yes. There's nothing to prevent
K:Adorian   % ???
is there ? Though some GUI software may hide it, I suppose, I don't
know (I prefer to use a few of them, to avoid textual "?"s in
searches).

But it might be nicer if we could put it/them straight in the
fieldvalue and have it ignored. But, if in, say, a T:, it wouldn't
want to be ignored to the extent of not getting printed ...

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Arent Storm]

> 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

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 07:19:17PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> Richard Robinson writes:
> | On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:32:51PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> | >
> | > K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
> |
> | This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
> | signature would be
> | K:Bb ?
> |
> | Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.
> 
> Don't look now, but we already have that problem. I've seen
> a fair number of abc tunes with key signatures like K:_B or
> K:^Fm, where the person  was  obviously  confused  on  this
> issue.   It's  too  bad  that  abc  copied  the traditional
> confused notation.  I suppose the people who do  this  will
> eventually  figure  out  why abc programs produce the wrong
> key signature with their tunes.
> 
> This confusion is probably not helped by an extension  that
> makes K:Bb and K:_B both legal but with different meanings.
> But since it's exactly the same sort of confusion  that  is
> in  conventional  music notation, the same sort of learning
> experience applies to both.

Yes. A case where the usual recommendation that parsers be liberal in
what they read could, given the extension, have unfortunate results.

But not if they implement it, of course.

> Now if there were only a way  to  make  conventional  music
> notation more rational ...

Then it would become unconventional notation ?



-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 08:42:32PM +0200, Arent Storm wrote:
> From: "I. Oppenheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> > 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.

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.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Richard Robinson writes:
| On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:32:51PM +, John Chambers wrote:
| >
| > K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
|
| This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
| signature would be
| K:Bb ?
|
| Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.

Don't look now, but we already have that problem. I've seen
a fair number of abc tunes with key signatures like K:_B or
K:^Fm, where the person  was  obviously  confused  on  this
issue.   It's  too  bad  that  abc  copied  the traditional
confused notation.  I suppose the people who do  this  will
eventually  figure  out  why abc programs produce the wrong
key signature with their tunes.

This confusion is probably not helped by an extension  that
makes K:Bb and K:_B both legal but with different meanings.
But since it's exactly the same sort of confusion  that  is
in  conventional  music notation, the same sort of learning
experience applies to both.

Now if there were only a way  to  make  conventional  music
notation more rational ...


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Arent Storm writes:
| From: "I. Oppenheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|
| > 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 ;-)

The best comparison I've seen is:  Suppose you were to find
a piece of music written with two sharps (^f^c), and as you
played it, you realized that every G had a sharp added, and
it really was in A major. You'd probably be annoyed, right?

Now, you can't really claim  that  the  music  is  "wrong",
because  all  the  notes  are right.  But there's something
wrong with that key signature.

The reason it's wrong is that what a key  signature  really
should  do is tell you the accidentals that you need to get
the basic scale, and then accidentals are  added  to  notes
that are outside the scale. If something is in A major, you
really should have ^g in the signature, because that's  the
normal note in the scale.

This is the  fundamental  argument  for  non-classical  key
signatures. A tune in D hejaz (or freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh
or whatever) is not G minor,  and  the  F  sharps  are  not
altered notes. The basic scale really goes D _E ^F G A _B c
d, and so those are the notes that the key signature should
give  as the starting point.  Then notes outside that scale
should have accidentals.

Key changes are a confounding issue in any  case.   In  our
original  piece  in  A  major,  we  might  well  have a few
sections that are in D major or B minor.  We could write in
key  changes,  but for short passages, that's silly.  So we
use accidentals for transient key changes, and  change  the
signature only if a long section is in a different key.

The same would probably apply in any musical style.  In the
case of klezmer music, there's a problem that at least four
different scales are in  routine  use,  and  key  or  scale
changes  are  quite  frequent.   In  that  case, the common
approach would be to throw up your hands at  the  mess  (no
matter  how  nice a tune it is), and just pick a simple key
signature.  It's the least messy solution.

When I went through my klezmer stuff and  "declassicalized"
the  key  signatures,  I found that I only wanted a "funny"
key signature in about 1/3 of the  tunes.   The  rest  were
either  in  a classical mode (major, minor, mixolydian), or
were sufficiently mixed-mode that it didn't matter.

But for tunes that really are in a non-classical scale,  it
can  be a lot easier to read the music if the key signature
doesn't lie to you.  Once you get used to such  scales,  of
course.

(And I doubt that the Dutch are any stupider than the  rest
of us.  There are known klezmer musicians in NL ...  ;-)


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Arent Storm]

- Original Message - 
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III


> Bernard Hill writes:

> While it is indeed common practice to omit begin-repeat symbols, this
> is  not  a nice thing to do to your readers.  I've often found myself
> hunting for the beginning of a repeat, and thinking "Why couldn't the
> f***ing  idiots  who  did this take the half-second extra to mark the
> beginning of the  repeat  with  a  fat  bar  and  two  dots?"  In  my
> experience,  this  produces  more  disasters  during  rehearsals (and
> sometimes during inadequately-rehearsed performances) than all  other
> bad notation practices combined.
> 
> If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
> repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  
*Hear hear !*

> But of course that's
> dreaming yet another impossible dream.



Arent

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Arent Storm]

From: "I. Oppenheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III


> 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 ;-)

Arent

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Richard Robinson writes:
| >
| > Of course,  such  searches  are  always  prone  to  failure
| > because people just give the wrong key.  It's common to see
| > K:G for tunes in E minor or A dorian.  There's not a lot we
| > can do about this except try to educate people.
|
| If I had them locally (the tunes, not the people) it might be worth
| considering a single-character key sig as a flag for "this might
| need changing" :-)

Well, this might not be all that bad an idea.  I've thought
that  it  would  be  nice  if  a  transcriber  could  write
something like:

K:?Adorian

This would mean that the transcriber is guessing  the  key.
The software would just ignore the '?', of course, and give
^f as the signature.  But it would warn interested  readers
(humand  and  software) that the transcriber had some doubt
about the accuracy of the key.

Implementing this would be easy for most abc software: Just
ignore the '?'.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:32:51PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> 
> It's quite logical.
> 
> K:A has a tonic but no scale information, so we assume major (^f^c^g).
> 
> K:Amix  has a tonic and a mode; the signature is ^f^c.
> 
> K:A_B   has a tonic and a key signature, which is _B
> 
> K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.

This last has the potential to be misunderstood, I think. The key
signature would be
K:Bb ?

Easy to mis-type, or misunderstand.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:26:21PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
> >
> >>  Now I don't really mind
> >> having minor keys as they are well established, and maybe even the modes
> >
> >Very tolerant of you  ;)
> 
> Well they're not really needed now, are they? There's no separate
> notation for them.

What, modes ? There's a notation for them, yes. They're needed, yes.
In that, it's another of those things that you can do with ABC key
signatures that you can't do on paper. Same idea as the explicit
accidentals, that you can give the tonic as well as the accidentals.


> However I had not allowed for the use of abc files as a database. In
> that case I can see a use for a tonic= or mode description.

Ah. That's how we were talking at cross purposes, then. Yes, that's the
point of things like that, that you can search a collection of ABC files
for them. And that's one of the really huge advantages that ABC has, for
my purposes.


Perhaps this should have a mention in the spec., if people can currently
overlook it ?


> As I have proposed in another post, how about
> 
> K:_b^f^c tonic=A
> 
> ?

I'd think the usage that John was clarifying (see the "K:E ^G"
discussion) does the same job rather more neatly without breaking
the orginal usage.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
>| >>
>| >> K:A_b^f^c
>| >> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
>| >
>| >It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
>|
>| So you are saying that
>|
>| K:A  has 3 sharps
>|
>| K:A _b has no sharps and one flat instead?
>|
>| This is totally illogical. I can understand K:A _b to mean 3 sharps and
>| add a b flat but what now is the significance of the A?
>
>It's quite logical.
>
>K:A has a tonic but no scale information, so we assume major (^f^c^g).
>
>K:Amix  has a tonic and a mode; the signature is ^f^c.

That's a separate key, just like K:Am

>
>K:A_B   has a tonic and a key signature, which is _B
>
Hm. I assumed in K:A_b that the _b is a modifier to the K:A, so that
this is a 3 sharps + 1 flat key signature. I can't have dreamed that up,
surely?

>K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.
That one's logical.





Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| My suggestion is that accidentals are in lower case, keys in upper.  And
| if the key name is missing then C is assumed.
|
| K:A ^b is F# C# G# and Bb.
| K:A =c is F# and G#
| K:_b^f is Bb and F#
|
| K:_b is Bb
| K:C _b
| K:F
|
| and the last 3 are equivalent of course.

No, the accidentals should be case sensitive.  I might not care about
this, personally, but I've seen the explanations.  When the topic has
come up in the past, several people have pointed out that  there  are
musical  styles  that  use different accidentals in two octaves.  The
examples I've seen are from southern Asia.

I've seen this done in Middle-Eastern music too, with scales like:

K:D=C_E_B^c

where the C is different in the two octaves.

We really shouldn't exclude these musical styles when it's so easy to
include  them.   We've had inquiries on the list from people who play
Persian and Indian classical music.  It would be interesting  to  see
how well it works for them.

If Jack Campin weren't on vacation, we'd probably hear from him now.


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:23:26PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >Bernard Hill writes:
> >| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> >writes
> >| >
> >| >If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
> >| >repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  But of course that's
> >| >dreaming yet another impossible dream.
> >|
> >| Well in Music Publisher it refuses to play the music observing the
> >| repeats until you *have* put a |: in. (Excepting the first repeat of
> >| course). And I don't expect to remove that restriction.
> >
> >What I've thought a player should do if any phrase after the first is
> >missing  its  initial repeat is to split into a "polyphonic" mode and
> >start playing simultaneously from the beginning and  just  after  the
> >last  end-repeat.  This would be an accurate rendition of how a group
> >of musicians would be expected to read such notation.
> 
> ROFL!
> >
> >(Also known as "Hey, let's play it as a round!"  ;-)

Another fine product for abc international.


Reminds me, I still haven't got round to that random pipe-march
generator. This is probably a Good Thing.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:11:44PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
>> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>> >
>> >> And from the abc source you have written
>> >> 
>> >> K:A_b^f^c
>> >> 
>> >> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
>> >
>> >It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
>> 
>> So you are saying that
>> 
>> K:A  has 3 sharps
>> 
>> K:A _b has no sharps and one flat instead?
>> 
>> This is totally illogical. I can understand K:A _b to mean 3 sharps and
>> add a b flat but what now is the significance of the A?
>
>As I said, Amix would have been better.
>
>What I was trying to notate was a key signature of Bb f# c#
>
>So, having clarified my mind, I hope, thanks to John, either
>K:Amix Bb
>or
>K:A _Bb ^f ^c
>since in the 1st, stating the mode brings its keysig in, and in the 2nd,
>not stating it doesn't imply any key signature.
>
>In either case, the significance of the A is that it's the root note of
>the tune.
>
>> The root note is totally irrelevant to anything.
>
>I don't think so.
>
>>  As you indicate,
>> sometimes there is argument about it anyway.
>
>I said I might change my mind about what it is. That hardly implies that
>it doesn't exist. But the indication that I'd think about it suggests
>that I'd then like to record it. As I can.
>
>>  Now I don't really mind
>> having minor keys as they are well established, and maybe even the modes
>
>Very tolerant of you  ;)

Well they're not really needed now, are they? There's no separate
notation for them.

However I had not allowed for the use of abc files as a database. In
that case I can see a use for a tonic= or mode description.

>
>> but in the case of made-up key signatures described exactly in a K:
>> format I don't see the point. Make that K:_b^f^c in your example above.
>
>As above, I wouldn't want to have to throw the root note away. Why
>should I, what's the advantage ?
>

As I have proposed in another post, how about

K:_b^f^c tonic=A

?

Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:20:26PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> Bernard Hill writes:
> | In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
> | <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> | >
> | >Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.
> |
> | K:C ^g looks fine to me.
> 
> Well, it looks fine, but it  has  the  wrong  tonic.   This
> doesn't matter on paper. But there are those of us who take
> advantage of the computer's ability to find stuff  for  us.
> This would cause it to match a search for tunes in C, which
> is not what you want if the tonic is E.
> 
> This is part of the argument for making the tonic optional.
> K:C^g  is misleading and causes bad matches.  K:^g would be
> better, because it wouldn't give a mismatch.   It  wouldn't
> match  a  search  for any tonic, of course, which is one of
> the reasons you'd prefer to have the tonic present.  But at
> least it wouldn't match the wrong tonic.
> 
> Of course,  such  searches  are  always  prone  to  failure
> because people just give the wrong key.  It's common to see
> K:G for tunes in E minor or A dorian.  There's not a lot we
> can do about this except try to educate people.

If I had them locally (the tunes, not the people) it might be worth
considering a single-character key sig as a flag for "this might
need changing" :-)

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
| >>
| >> K:A_b^f^c
| >> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
| >
| >It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
|
| So you are saying that
|
| K:A  has 3 sharps
|
| K:A _b has no sharps and one flat instead?
|
| This is totally illogical. I can understand K:A _b to mean 3 sharps and
| add a b flat but what now is the significance of the A?

It's quite logical.

K:A has a tonic but no scale information, so we assume major (^f^c^g).

K:Amix  has a tonic and a mode; the signature is ^f^c.

K:A_B   has a tonic and a key signature, which is _B

K:_Bhas no tonic, but a signature, which is _B.  Maybe it's F or Dm.

You assume a major scale if they don't give you any clues  about  the
scale.

Knowing the tonic is always nice, but standard staff  notation  shows
that  it  isn't  necessary.  Experience with abc shows that musicians
like to know the tonic anyway, and classical terminology often  tells
you the tonic and mode in the title, so we should encourage it.

An example of an unnecessary tonic, from a klezmer context:

K:^G

could mean either K:D^G or K:E^G.  There are other possibilities, but
these are the two most likely.  Of course, you can usually tell which
it is by the end of the first bar, but it's nice to  know  up  front.
And  it's  especially  nice if you're asking the computer to find you
some tunes in E something.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Bernard Hill writes:
>| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>writes
>| >
>| >If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
>| >repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  But of course that's
>| >dreaming yet another impossible dream.
>|
>| Well in Music Publisher it refuses to play the music observing the
>| repeats until you *have* put a |: in. (Excepting the first repeat of
>| course). And I don't expect to remove that restriction.
>
>What I've thought a player should do if any phrase after the first is
>missing  its  initial repeat is to split into a "polyphonic" mode and
>start playing simultaneously from the beginning and  just  after  the
>last  end-repeat.  This would be an accurate rendition of how a group
>of musicians would be expected to read such notation.

ROFL!
>
>(Also known as "Hey, let's play it as a round!"  ;-)
>
>To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/list
>s.html


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
| <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >
| >Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.
|
| K:C ^g looks fine to me.

Well, it looks fine, but it  has  the  wrong  tonic.   This
doesn't matter on paper. But there are those of us who take
advantage of the computer's ability to find stuff  for  us.
This would cause it to match a search for tunes in C, which
is not what you want if the tonic is E.

This is part of the argument for making the tonic optional.
K:C^g  is misleading and causes bad matches.  K:^g would be
better, because it wouldn't give a mismatch.   It  wouldn't
match  a  search  for any tonic, of course, which is one of
the reasons you'd prefer to have the tonic present.  But at
least it wouldn't match the wrong tonic.

Of course,  such  searches  are  always  prone  to  failure
because people just give the wrong key.  It's common to see
K:G for tunes in E minor or A dorian.  There's not a lot we
can do about this except try to educate people.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >
| >If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
| >repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  But of course that's
| >dreaming yet another impossible dream.
|
| Well in Music Publisher it refuses to play the music observing the
| repeats until you *have* put a |: in. (Excepting the first repeat of
| course). And I don't expect to remove that restriction.

What I've thought a player should do if any phrase after the first is
missing  its  initial repeat is to split into a "polyphonic" mode and
start playing simultaneously from the beginning and  just  after  the
last  end-repeat.  This would be an accurate rendition of how a group
of musicians would be expected to read such notation.

(Also known as "Hey, let's play it as a round!"  ;-)

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 05:11:44PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >
> >> And from the abc source you have written
> >> 
> >> K:A_b^f^c
> >> 
> >> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
> >
> >It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
> 
> So you are saying that
> 
> K:A  has 3 sharps
> 
> K:A _b has no sharps and one flat instead?
> 
> This is totally illogical. I can understand K:A _b to mean 3 sharps and
> add a b flat but what now is the significance of the A?

As I said, Amix would have been better.

What I was trying to notate was a key signature of Bb f# c#

So, having clarified my mind, I hope, thanks to John, either
K:Amix Bb
or
K:A _Bb ^f ^c
since in the 1st, stating the mode brings its keysig in, and in the 2nd,
not stating it doesn't imply any key signature.

In either case, the significance of the A is that it's the root note of
the tune.

> The root note is totally irrelevant to anything.

I don't think so.

>  As you indicate,
> sometimes there is argument about it anyway.

I said I might change my mind about what it is. That hardly implies that
it doesn't exist. But the indication that I'd think about it suggests
that I'd then like to record it. As I can.

>  Now I don't really mind
> having minor keys as they are well established, and maybe even the modes

Very tolerant of you  ;)

> but in the case of made-up key signatures described exactly in a K:
> format I don't see the point. Make that K:_b^f^c in your example above.

As above, I wouldn't want to have to throw the root note away. Why
should I, what's the advantage ?

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Steven Bennett
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Bert Van Vreckem wrote:
>
>That all said, I don't think I've ever actually *seen* any Irish music with
>a roll ornament actually placed (didn't even know there was a symbol for it
>until I read this thread...) -- as I said before, Irish players prefer to
>ornament as they see fit, so the idea of actually writing an ornament on the
>music seems like you're telling them they can't do that...  Of course, most
>of my written Irish music is tin whistle oriented -- maybe that symbol is
>used more in fiddle or pipe music.

Well it's not known in pipe music. They use a particular form of
embellishment known generically as a doubling and it takes many forms,
which are written out.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Steven Bennett]

Bert Van Vreckem wrote:
> Bernard Hill wrote:
>> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bert Van Vreckem
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>>> Bernard Hill wrote:
>>> 
 2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
 dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
 timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.
>>> 
>>> It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've
>>> come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's
>>> Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.
>> 
>> Thanks. But what does it mean? What would say an autoharp make of it,
>> say perhaps to make it a tremolo.
> 
> It means "play any ornamentation here". The exact meaning is unspecified.

True, more or less -- but then you could say in Irish music that *all*
ornamentation is optional and could be played any way you like -- I know
some Irish musicians who rarely if ever play the same tune the same way
twice.

But at least semi-officially, a "roll" in the Irish and Scottish tradition
is one of several mechanisms used by fiddle, flute, tinwhistle, and pipes
players to handle repeated identical notes without requiring a break in the
sound.  Fiddle players use it to do the notes in one long bow stroke, flute
and tin whistle players use it for playing them in one breath without
tonguing, and pipers (bag- & uilean) use it because they need *something* to
interrupt the repeated notes -- you don't stop a pipe from making noise
easily.  And other instrument players don't need it for any reason, but it
sounds good.   (I use rolls frequently when playing Irish music on my
Hammered Dulcimer, for example...)

The roll basically inserts higher and lower notes in-between the identical
notes.  What it works out to is this:  Say a tune has a point somewhere that
has three A notes in a row.  You might write this down as a single 3 beat A
note with a roll ornament.  When you play it, you will actually play 5
slightly shorter notes in the same timeframe, most frequently ABAGA, but
I've seen people play it AGABA or even some other combination -- it's a very
loose convention.  And there can be longer rolls, but the basic concept is
you are rolling up and down around the specified note.

That all said, I don't think I've ever actually *seen* any Irish music with
a roll ornament actually placed (didn't even know there was a symbol for it
until I read this thread...) -- as I said before, Irish players prefer to
ornament as they see fit, so the idea of actually writing an ornament on the
music seems like you're telling them they can't do that...  Of course, most
of my written Irish music is tin whistle oriented -- maybe that symbol is
used more in fiddle or pipe music.
 
-->Steve Bennett

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>Actually, I've seen music with nested repeats that work exactly  like
>parentheses.   I've even used this on occasion myself.  Granted, most
>musicians have probably never seen this.   But  I've  found  that  it
>doesn't even take explantion; musicians usually seem to understand it
>without even thinking about it.

That's exactly my point.

Here's some music:

 |  |  :|
 |  |  :|

Now, where is the 2nd repeat to go back to? It *might* well be the
beginning - the music notation has to be explicit. Either it's

 |  |  :|
|:.. |  |  :|

or it's 

 |  |  :|
 |  |  |
 |  |  :|
 |  |  |

Remember cut-and-paste is easy in abc tunes so maybe we should do away
with repeat signs entirely 




Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>*sigh* yes. So how to reconcile these ? If accidentals are given on a
>K: line, then if a mode is given you get the second usage, just above,
>and if it's just a bare notename you get the first usage ?

My suggestion is that accidentals are in lower case, keys in upper.  And
if the key name is missing then C is assumed.

K:A ^b is F# C# G# and Bb.
K:A =c is F# and G#
K:_b^f is Bb and F#

K:_b is Bb
K:C _b 
K:F 

and the last 3 are equivalent of course.

In other words the accidentals are *modifiers* of the key signature
given in capital letter. Nice and logical. If you really *must* have a
tonic given, then it is given as

K:C _b tonic=E

and the tonic= can be ignored by music software as it's a musical
judgement rather than a notational issue.



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>> And from the abc source you have written
>> 
>> K:A_b^f^c
>> 
>> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
>
>It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.

So you are saying that

K:A  has 3 sharps

K:A _b has no sharps and one flat instead?

This is totally illogical. I can understand K:A _b to mean 3 sharps and
add a b flat but what now is the significance of the A?

>
>It's K:A since A seems, to me, the root note. Amix would have
>been better - I have a vague memory that I tried that and it didn't work
>at the time, so the result's a kludge. But it does now.

The root note is totally irrelevant to anything. As you indicate,
sometimes there is argument about it anyway. Now I don't really mind
having minor keys as they are well established, and maybe even the modes
but in the case of made-up key signatures described exactly in a K:
format I don't see the point. Make that K:_b^f^c in your example above.



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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

Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.

K:C ^g looks fine to me.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
>repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  But of course that's
>dreaming yet another impossible dream.

Well in Music Publisher it refuses to play the music observing the
repeats until you *have* put a |: in. (Excepting the first repeat of
course). And I don't expect to remove that restriction.



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers]ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

David Barnert wrote:
| Bernard wrote-
|
| > 2. |: at the beginning of a section is not ugly. And I do
| > not like being forced to accept incorrect notation in that
| > if a |: is missing then the repeat should be made from the
| > previous double bar.
|
| But it *is* ugly at the beginning of a piece. Apparently,
| Beethoven agreed. Open the score of any of his symphonies (or
| any other classical "sonata-allegro" movement, for that
| matter) and note that there is no opening |: although the
| first section repeats. It cannot be bad abc to preserve this.

Well, "ugly" is in the eye  of  the  beholder.   One  of  the  common
problems  in  orchestra  and  band  rehearsals is getting the initial
counting correct.  If the instruments don't all start  together,  and
the music doesn't start exactly on a bar line, it's fairly common for
people to have different understanding of when they are to  come  in.
Sometimes this can only be resolved by showing the full score to some
of the later entrants, so they can copy some cue notes to their page.

This could all be solved if everyone's part had a clear [| or |:   at
the  beginning,  with however many rests your part has before you are
to start.  If the initial bar line and rests are omitted, the  result
is  very often mass confusion and a lot of work to coordinate all the
entries correctly.

Labelling the first bar line with a big, fat "A" will also help.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 04:12:38PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> Richard Robinson writes:
> | > The only solution would be to write this:
> | >   K:Ephr^G
> |
> | Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.
> 
> Actually, I do include accidentals with this scale at times. The main
> reason is that with:

Oh, dear, confusing. I'm sorry, I meant on the opposite assumption, that
that implied Emajor.


> K:E=F^G
> 
> This is *really* obvious that there's something "funny" going on.   I
> do like the look of this one.  It's so blatantly non-classical.

Cor. yes, it's definitely eye catching.

> Anyway, the best way to approach this is probably  to  treat  bo  the
> mode  and  any  explicit  accidentals as giving the key signature, so
> major should not be assumed.  You only assume major if  there  is  no
> key-signature information at all.

This seems both expressive and comprehensible, and retains backwards
compatability as well.


-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Richard Robinson writes:
| > The only solution would be to write this:
| >   K:Ephr^G
|
| Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.

Actually, I do include accidentals with this scale at times. The main
reason is that with:

K:E^g

many musicians will not notice the subtle positioning of the sharp on
the  g space, and will see it as ^f, giving E minor.  If you're going
to do this, it's better to write:

K:E=f^g

This is another "advisory" accidental, of course.  But if you write:

K:E^G

this isn't as big a problem.  Musicians who know only  classical  key
signatures  will usually notice that there's something highly unusual
here, and will see  where  the  sharp  is  positioned.   Still,  I've
sometimes written:

K:E=F^G

This is *really* obvious that there's something "funny" going on.   I
do like the look of this one.  It's so blatantly non-classical.

Anyway, the best way to approach this is probably  to  treat  bo  the
mode  and  any  explicit  accidentals as giving the key signature, so
major should not be assumed.  You only assume major if  there  is  no
key-signature information at all.

One thing that falls out of my code is that

K:

is legal.  It is equivalent to  K:none,  of  course,  not  K:C.   The
difference is left as an exercise for the reader.


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 03:17:52PM +, John Chambers wrote:
> Richard Robinson writes:
> | On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 01:15:54PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> |
> | > And from the abc source you have written
> | >
> | > K:A_b^f^c
> | >
> | > shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
> |
> | It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
> |
> | It's K:A since A seems, to me, the root note. Amix would have
> | been better - I have a vague memory that I tried that and it didn't work
> | at the time, so the result's a kludge. But it does now.
> |
> | It would seem more logical to write just K:Amix _B to get Bb and the
> | usual 2 sharps, but in abc2mps that produces a sig with 1 flat, only,
> | so the full spelling out seems necessary. OTOH, the shorter version
> | works with jcabc2ps, but that doesn't accept spaces in it. I rather
> | prefer the appearance from abcm2ps - and, spelling all the accidentals
> | out seems to let me control which order they're shown in, which is nice ...
> | If I use K:Amix_B^f^c in jcabc2ps it prints the sharps twice.
> 
> (Hmmm ... I tried to make it accept spaces. Maybe I'd better do a bit
> more debugging.)

"jcabc2ps vjc.1.1.0 (2003.01.27, std) compiled Jul 11 2003", by the way.

(Maybe I'd better a do a bit more checking) ... the Amix was upsetting
it. It'll take K:A ^f_B^c correctly, but a space after the ^f hides
subsequent accidentals.


> Anyway, after playing around with  such  key  signatures  a  bit,  it
> quickly  became  obvious  that, if an explicit list of accidentals is
> included, then the mode should *not* default to "major".  This  would
> produce some very baffled users.  The right default is no mode, i.e.,
> no accidentals other than what is listed.
> 
> To see why, consider a simple case like E hejaz/freygish, which is
>   E F ^G A B c d e
> 
> Any musician who knows what this sort of scale is will write this:
>   K:E^G
> 
> If the default is major, then the musician will get a result that  is
> indistinguishable  from  E major.  The ^G may be shown twice (in both
> octaves), which will be even more confusing.
> 
> The only solution would be to write this:
>   K:Ephr^G

Or K:E=f=c^G=d  ? Longer, but maybe clearer.

> Now this may seem reasonable, because in fact it's exactly right. But
> it has one serious problem: You need to use a different mode for each
> tonic note. This will make sense to someone intricately familiar with
> the  classical European modes.  But to the other 99% of the musicians
> in the world, it will be utterly baffling.  If I want to do the  same
> thing with a tonic of A, I'll have to write something like:
>   K:Amin_B^c
> 
> These are the same sort of scale.  That is, they really are the  same
> "mode". But I'd have to write a different mode name for each, and the
> name has no obvious relation to the actual mode.  The reason is  that
> the mode would be used solely to cancel the major key signature.
> 
> This would be hopeless, and would defeat the whole purpose of  having
> an  explicit  key  signature.  So the right way to do it is to accept
> either a mode or a list of accidentals, or both.  Only  if  both  are
> missing do you assume major.

This makes sense to me, I think. My experience if transcribing things
like this is the actual pitch of the notes becomes clear fairly quickly,
while actually trying to get the thing down. But I may then want to
change my mind about the "root note" later. So it's nice to be able to
change just the one letter without any implications on the rest of the
line.

> OTOH, I do like to use both.  If you use "K:Ephr^G", you can tranpose
> it down a step by just writing "K:Dphr^F", and transposing it to A is
> then "K:Aphr^c".  You just do the same shift to the tonic and to  all
> the accidentals.  If you use "K:E^G", then transposing to A would give
> you "K:A_B^c", which isn't quite as trivial.

*sigh* yes. So how to reconcile these ? If accidentals are given on a
K: line, then if a mode is given you get the second usage, just above,
and if it's just a bare notename you get the first usage ?

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers]ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Laura Conrad]

> "John" == John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

John> Next you'll be telling us that Britney Spears is a musician ...

Does she follow standards?

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers]ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bryan Creer writes:
|
| Perhaps it's time to plug my idea of -
|
| K:_b^f^c tonic=A mode=whatever
|
| Completely unambiguous.

Yeah, and I'd probably use that.  Maybe I should just  implement  it.
You  could  even include a rule saying that the mode is to be ignored
if there is a key signature or you don't recognize it.  That way, one
could  give  the  "correct" name for a scale that would be useful for
lookups, without worrying about software understanding it.  You  just
make sure you always give the key signature (possibly "none"). But we
would have to continue to accept the older notation, and most  people
would continue to use it to save typing.

| Talking of which, are there any plans for a procedure for amendments or
| extensions to the standard or do we just stick to the implement your favourite idea
| and argue about it afterwards system we have now?

What a concept!  This is a gang of musicians, you know.  What are the
chances of us ever agreeing to any such thing?

Next you'll be telling us that Britney Spears is a musician ...


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 04:03:23PM +0100, Phil Taylor wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >There are to supported syntaxes:
> >[A] K: 
> >[B] K: 
> 
> This is actually a bit counterintuitive, since
> 
> K:D
> 
> means D major (= 2 sharps)
> 
> while
> 
> K:D ^f
> 
> means D mix (= 1 sharp)
> 
> Not that there are many tunes about currently which use global accidentals,
> but the second interpretation of the symbol D breaks the old standard.

Yes. The least necessary change would be to require explicit Dmaj, which
would label a bare D as tonic. But all of this breaks with what's
Already Out There.

> If the symbol D is to be interpreted in a new way (i.e. as tonic, rather
> than as a D major key signature) I'd rather it was explicitly labelled as
> such, i.e.
> 
> K: tonic=D ^f
> 
> or some such.

As with Bryan's suggestion, I'd prefer to keep the simplicity of
searching for K: to find all tunes that sit on .

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Richard Robinson writes:
| On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 01:15:54PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
|
| > And from the abc source you have written
| >
| > K:A_b^f^c
| >
| > shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?
|
| It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.
|
| It's K:A since A seems, to me, the root note. Amix would have
| been better - I have a vague memory that I tried that and it didn't work
| at the time, so the result's a kludge. But it does now.
|
| It would seem more logical to write just K:Amix _B to get Bb and the
| usual 2 sharps, but in abc2mps that produces a sig with 1 flat, only,
| so the full spelling out seems necessary. OTOH, the shorter version
| works with jcabc2ps, but that doesn't accept spaces in it. I rather
| prefer the appearance from abcm2ps - and, spelling all the accidentals
| out seems to let me control which order they're shown in, which is nice ...
| If I use K:Amix_B^f^c in jcabc2ps it prints the sharps twice.

(Hmmm ... I tried to make it accept spaces. Maybe I'd better do a bit
more debugging.)

Anyway, after playing around with  such  key  signatures  a  bit,  it
quickly  became  obvious  that, if an explicit list of accidentals is
included, then the mode should *not* default to "major".  This  would
produce some very baffled users.  The right default is no mode, i.e.,
no accidentals other than what is listed.

To see why, consider a simple case like E hejaz/freygish, which is
  E F ^G A B c d e

Any musician who knows what this sort of scale is will write this:
  K:E^G

If the default is major, then the musician will get a result that  is
indistinguishable  from  E major.  The ^G may be shown twice (in both
octaves), which will be even more confusing.

The only solution would be to write this:
  K:Ephr^G

Now this may seem reasonable, because in fact it's exactly right. But
it has one serious problem: You need to use a different mode for each
tonic note. This will make sense to someone intricately familiar with
the  classical European modes.  But to the other 99% of the musicians
in the world, it will be utterly baffling.  If I want to do the  same
thing with a tonic of A, I'll have to write something like:
  K:Amin_B^c

These are the same sort of scale.  That is, they really are the  same
"mode". But I'd have to write a different mode name for each, and the
name has no obvious relation to the actual mode.  The reason is  that
the mode would be used solely to cancel the major key signature.

This would be hopeless, and would defeat the whole purpose of  having
an  explicit  key  signature.  So the right way to do it is to accept
either a mode or a list of accidentals, or both.  Only  if  both  are
missing do you assume major.

OTOH, I do like to use both.  If you use "K:Ephr^G", you can tranpose
it down a step by just writing "K:Dphr^F", and transposing it to A is
then "K:Aphr^c".  You just do the same shift to the tonic and to  all
the accidentals.  If you use "K:E^G", then transposing to A would give
you "K:A_B^c", which isn't quite as trivial.

I've gotta make sure that spaces are accepted everywhere here ...

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Phil Taylor]

[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>There are to supported syntaxes:
>[A] K: 
>[B] K: 

This is actually a bit counterintuitive, since

K:D

means D major (= 2 sharps)

while

K:D ^f

means D mix (= 1 sharp)

Not that there are many tunes about currently which use global accidentals,
but the second interpretation of the symbol D breaks the old standard.

If the symbol D is to be interpreted in a new way (i.e. as tonic, rather
than as a D major key signature) I'd rather it was explicitly labelled as
such, i.e.

K: tonic=D ^f

or some such.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:
| >
| >> >> 5. No mention of midline
| >> >What do you mean?
| >>
| >> Sorry, I abandoned a comment and forgot to complete
| >> it. I am thinking of the midline field in Clefs.
| >
| >I'm not sure what you mean.
| >
| >[K: clef=bass] or [K: bass] is legal.
|
| Is it? I couldn't find it.
|
| Anyway the midline field attempted to define the middle line of say the
| bass clef as D or "D," to avoid too many leger lines. I never liked it
| anyway so glad it's gone.


Well, I'm not! It's a simple, elegant solution to a problem we've had
from the start: Different people insist on different abc notation for
notes on an alto and bass staff.  Some think that  the  unmarked  abc
letter  notes  should  always map to the staff; others think that abc
notes should have an absolute pitch and  the  bass  staff  should  be
written  with  lots and lots of commas.  Discussions in the past have
shown that there will be no compromise here. And there are reasonable
arguments  for  both,  as well as for other mappings.  But there is a
very simple solution:  "middle=d" or  "middle=D,"  tells  the  reader
(human or software) which mapping the writer thought was the one that
God intended us to use.  And it is  often  abbreviated  to  "m=d"  or
"m=D,", so programs should be prepared to accept those.

(I wonder if God's true name is "Chris"?  If you look at  the  actual
meaning  of  the  Greek  phrase that the name derives from, this does
make a lot of sense.  ;-)

There was also another good suggestion that "clef=bass,," be used for
a bass line notated two octaves low. I liked this, too, and I made my
jcabc2ps clone accept both of them.  This is more compact, but it has
the limitation that it doesn't allow things like
  K: G clef=treble middle=d
This is, of course, French Violin clef, beloved by  Baroque  fiddlers
world  wide.   There are a couple of other conventional uses of clefs
that are positioned on other lines than the usual, and this  notation
can express them, too.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
| >There are to supported syntaxes:
| >[A] K: 
| >[B] K: 
| >
| >Syntax A will _modify_ the key signature of the mode
| >given, rather than simply append accidentals to it.
| >Example:
| >
| >K:Dmaj =c  % will give F# Cnat
| >
| >Syntax B, which only contains the name of the tonic,
| >and does not imply a mode, will allow you to spell out
| >a key signature in full:
| >
| >K:D ^f =c % same meaning as above
| >
| >Note that in syntax B the tonic may be basically
| >ignored by the parser; the tonic is only there to make
| >the notation comprehensible to other users.

In several discussions, we've also had a  number  of  people  request
that  the  tonic  be  officially  optional.  One reason is to help in
transcriptions where the transcriber may get the key wrong.

One objection has been the fear that if we allow  this,  then  tonics
will  disappear.   I  suspect  that  this  won't happen at all.  Even
musicians who are relatively ignorant of music theory understand what
it means to say that a tune is "in G" or "in E minor". It's very rare
for musicians to tell you the key signature; they  usually  give  you
the tonic and/or the mode (even if they don't know those terms).

And the counter-argument to this has been from people who  feel  that
it's better to not give the tonic than to give the wrong tonic.  This
is a matter of personal preference, I suppose. And how liberal an abc
program wants to be is probably a matter of the programmer's personal
preference. We've already seen that putting global accidentals in the
1.6  standard  didn't  mean that many programmers would implement it.
The same probably applies here.

| "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in intent) are very
| non-standard. Are they really necessary? I've never played from one and
| would actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f

They aren't at all strange to a lot of us.  Even music publishers are
now  accepting  such things.  For example, Mel Bay's recent (and well
done) klezmer collection has a lot of non-classical key signatures. A
lot  depends  on  what music you play.  Part of the pressure for more
extensions in abc is from people playing music other than traditional
British  Isles  folk  music.   Sorry, folks; the musical weirdos have
discovered abc, like it, and want to use it.

| Anyway: have you abandoned the "global accidentals" idea? I thought it
| very good actually. In fact some Bach is written that way - he writes a
| key sig of 1 flat and "manually" flattens every E and ends on a G minor
| chord!

Yeah; I've noticed that in urtext editions.  I think what was  really
going  on  was  that  the  "official" notation for minor hadn't quite
stabilized back then.  Bach and some others would use  a  dorian  key
signature  for  minor  at times, possibly depending on their feel for
which would use the fewer accidentals.  I've seen the same  thing  in
urtext  editions  of  Handel,  Quantz, Vivaldi and the Louillets, for
example. Our notions of the rules for classical key signatures really
weren't firm until around 1800 or so.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:

> >[K: clef=bass] or [K: bass] is legal.
> Is it? I couldn't find it.
>
> Anyway the midline field attempted to define the middle line of say the
> bass clef as D or "D," to avoid too many leger lines. I never liked it
> anyway so glad it's gone.

It's not gone!
you can still type:
[K: bass middle=D transpose=-2]
or whatever you like.

BTW, There is no difference between what you can
achieve with separate K: lines and [K:] midline fields


> >So [K: clef=alto] or [K: alto] will do the job.
>
> Then it should not be a subheading of the Multiple Voices section,
That is a good point! I'll put it into a separate
section.

> but explicitly part of the K: Key section.
No, clef/middle/transpose can be used both with K:,
and V: fields.

> Or at least say "the syntax is
>
> [K: | V:] [clef=]  .. etc"
NB: You may mix the clef specifiers with the special
specifiers of the K: and V: fields.

> I looked in vain for any examples such as you have written above: the
> context indicated it was firmly fixed to V: notation.

The section already contained this example:
[V:Clarinet] [K:C transpose=-2]

> >Of course, we could introduce a %% directive like
> >%%global-accidentals 1
> >to change the standard interpretation of the [K:]
> >field.
> >
> >Should I add that?
>
> No. I suggest you allow software to create either individual (global)
> accidentals or strange key sigs. My own software (to which abc is simply
> an add-on importing/exporting module) does not support strange key sigs
> so I will have to do this anyway.

I will add a note about this.


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

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.)


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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
|
| 1. No ability to change clef in non-voiced music, the clef change is
| only in the voicing section. This means you can't write music for viola
| or cello.

All the clef stuff has "traditionally" (;-) been allowed in  both  V:
and K: lines.  You really need this to handle the task at all well.

| 1. Unusual key signatures such as "K:D =c". In a previous standard this
| referred to a "global accidental" so that the key sig was D and every
| subsequent c was naturalised. Fine.
|
| Following the example in in "K: Key" that "K:Dphr ^f" would give a *key
| sig* of 2 flats and 1 sharp, this imples that the previously-quoted
| example "K:D =c" would have me put a key sig of F#, C# and then Cnat.
| Which if course is nonsense. Much more standard to implement as the
| paragraph above.

Well, "K:D =c" is indeed nonsense under that interpretation.   I  use
this  scale  in some tunes, and I write it "K:Dmix=c" when I want the
advisory natural in the key signature.

But calling the 1.6 "global accidental"  idea  "standard"  is  a  bit
peculiar.   This  doesn't  make much sense with staff notation, since
when someone writes a D major signature and  then  cancels  every  ^c
with  a  natural,  you  can't  tell whether they were thinking of the
naturals as part of the key signature. They probably weren't, because
if  they  are consciously aware of mixolydian scales, they would have
just written the key signature  as  ^f  and  not  bothered  with  the
silliness of cancelling the c sharps throughout. With staff notation,
you can't tell what the writer thought the key might have  been;  you
can only see the accidentals that they wrote on the page.  G major, E
minor, A lydian and D mixolydian look identical.  A ^c in the  keysig
that's cancelled with a =c throughout just looks, well, stupid.

What we'd really like with such notation is a  three-way  option,  to
put all the accidentals in the key signature, or to put the extras in
the music, or to put the entire key signature into  the  music.   All
three would be very useful to someone, say, writing a music textbook.
But I suppose this is really dreaming an impossible dream.

| 2. |: at the beginning of a section is not ugly. And I do not like being
| forced to accept incorrect notation in that if a |: is missing then the
| repeat should be made from the previous double bar.

Actually, I've seen music with nested repeats that work exactly  like
parentheses.   I've even used this on occasion myself.  Granted, most
musicians have probably never seen this.   But  I've  found  that  it
doesn't even take explantion; musicians usually seem to understand it
without even thinking about it.

It does help if you use all the repeat symbols including those at the
beginning otherwise people get confused)).

;-)

While it is indeed common practice to omit begin-repeat symbols, this
is  not  a nice thing to do to your readers.  I've often found myself
hunting for the beginning of a repeat, and thinking "Why couldn't the
f***ing  idiots  who  did this take the half-second extra to mark the
beginning of the  repeat  with  a  fat  bar  and  two  dots?"  In  my
experience,  this  produces  more  disasters  during  rehearsals (and
sometimes during inadequately-rehearsed performances) than all  other
bad notation practices combined.

If I had my druthers, I'd put a rule in  saying  that  beginnings  of
repeated  sections  *must*  be marked properly.  But of course that's
dreaming yet another impossible dream.

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 01:15:54PM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 11:41:39AM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in intent) are very
> >> non-standard. Are they really necessary? I've never played from one and
> >> would actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f
> >
> >See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/gettune/0c54.html
> >for an example of how they can be useful. Helpful for the typing, and
> >(IMO) more helpful in that they show the rules that apply, instead of
> >just confronting people with lots of accidental notes.
> 
> Ouch! The meaning may be clear, but much better with individual flats
> imo! I find it very hard to play correctly!

You reckon ? I find it better to be able to show the actual scale.
Not that I've made a very good job of the later sections, now I come to
look at it again. 

(And now, I begin to think I've been playing the Fs as natural in the
last 3 sections, I wonder if that's right ? It's not what I've written.
Better dig out some tapes and check.)

Heh. A useful example to pick - for me, anyway. Now replaced with a
slightly more fixed version.

> (And why sharpen the fs in stave 5?)

Good question. Er, "for historical reasons".


> And from the abc source you have written
> 
> K:A_b^f^c
> 
> shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?

It definitely shouldn't have a G#, since the Gs aren't sharp.

It's K:A since A seems, to me, the root note. Amix would have
been better - I have a vague memory that I tried that and it didn't work
at the time, so the result's a kludge. But it does now.

It would seem more logical to write just K:Amix _B to get Bb and the
usual 2 sharps, but in abc2mps that produces a sig with 1 flat, only,
so the full spelling out seems necessary. OTOH, the shorter version
works with jcabc2ps, but that doesn't accept spaces in it. I rather
prefer the appearance from abcm2ps - and, spelling all the accidentals
out seems to let me control which order they're shown in, which is nice ...
If I use K:Amix_B^f^c in jcabc2ps it prints the sharps twice.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:
>
>> >> 5. No mention of midline
>> >What do you mean?
>>
>> Sorry, I abandoned a comment and forgot to complete
>> it. I am thinking of the midline field in Clefs.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean.
>
>[K: clef=bass] or [K: bass] is legal.

Is it? I couldn't find it.

Anyway the midline field attempted to define the middle line of say the
bass clef as D or "D," to avoid too many leger lines. I never liked it
anyway so glad it's gone.

>
>> I should have said non-Multiple Voiced Music: ie that which does not
>> have any V: fields. All your clef definitions are in the Multiple Voice
>> music section, so how to write the clef for viola music is not clear.
>
>The standard says in the key section:
>>
>
>And in the clef section:
>>
>
>So [K: clef=alto] or [K: alto] will do the job.

Then it should not be a subheading of the Multiple Voices section, but
explicitly part of the K: Key section.

Or at least say "the syntax is

[K: | V:] [clef=]  .. etc"

I looked in vain for any examples such as you have written above: the
context indicated it was firmly fixed to V: notation.

>
>I guess I should make this clearer in the standard.

:-)

>
>> "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in
>> intent) are very non-standard. Are they really
>> necessary? I've never played from one and would
>> actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f
>
>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).
>
>> Anyway: have you abandoned the "global accidentals" idea?
>
>Most people on the list seemed to prefer "explicit
>accidentals" over "global accidentals".

Hm. I didn't see any discussion...
>
>Of course, we could introduce a %% directive like
>%%global-accidentals 1
>to change the standard interpretation of the [K:]
>field.
>
>Should I add that?

No. I suggest you allow software to create either individual (global)
accidentals or strange key sigs. My own software (to which abc is simply
an add-on importing/exporting module) does not support strange key sigs
so I will have to do this anyway.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard Robinson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 11:41:39AM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in intent) are very
>> non-standard. Are they really necessary? I've never played from one and
>> would actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f
>
>See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/gettune/0c54.html
>for an example of how they can be useful. Helpful for the typing, and
>(IMO) more helpful in that they show the rules that apply, instead of
>just confronting people with lots of accidental notes.

Ouch! The meaning may be clear, but much better with individual flats
imo! I find it very hard to play correctly!

(And why sharpen the fs in stave 5?)

And from the abc source you have written

K:A_b^f^c

shouldn't that have a G# also since you've written K:A?


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Richard Robinson wrote:

> It then goes on to state where each field "will" be printed. This is at
> least inconsistent, and I don't think this is the right place for this
> level of detail.

Note that it says:

<<
Note that is only indicative, users may change the
formatting by providing stylesheet directives or
setting options in the software they use.
>>

So the standard in fact recommends the usage of
%%-style layout directives.


 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:

> >> 5. No mention of midline
> >What do you mean?
>
> Sorry, I abandoned a comment and forgot to complete
> it. I am thinking of the midline field in Clefs.

I'm not sure what you mean.

[K: clef=bass] or [K: bass] is legal.

> I should have said non-Multiple Voiced Music: ie that which does not
> have any V: fields. All your clef definitions are in the Multiple Voice
> music section, so how to write the clef for viola music is not clear.

The standard says in the key section:
<>

And in the clef section:
<>

So [K: clef=alto] or [K: alto] will do the job.

I guess I should make this clearer in the standard.

> "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in
> intent) are very non-standard. Are they really
> necessary? I've never played from one and would
> actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f

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).

> Anyway: have you abandoned the "global accidentals" idea?

Most people on the list seemed to prefer "explicit
accidentals" over "global accidentals".

Of course, we could introduce a %% directive like
%%global-accidentals 1
to change the standard interpretation of the [K:]
field.

Should I add that?


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 08:55:54PM +0200, I. Oppenheim wrote:
> 
> Please help me with identifying the errors and the
> mistakes in the draft.


"Order of ABC constructs" should include all possibilities. Tuplets are
missing, for example.

I suggest structuring this list - like, spell out the ordering of
symbols which apply to a single note, then treat this as a "note" in
an ordering of larger constructs ?

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bert Van Vreckem wrote:

> 1. Information Fields section: can the additional notes on fields be put
> in alphabetical order?

I preferred to deal with them in logical, rather than
alphabetical order

> 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.

In principal all fractions are allowed. However, most
programs, especially notation programs, may only want
to deal with lengths that can be notated as a single
note, possibly dotted.

I will add a note about this.

> (CD (EF) GA)

I would say this should be interpreted as:
   __
CD EF GA


While:

(CD (E) FG) should be equivalent with (CD E FG)


> 5. Annotations: "Using the '@' symbol leaves the exact placing of the
> string to the discretion of the interpreting program." This doesn't help
> me to understand how to use the @-symbol. Is this not part of the
> standard? Could you an example be included to clarify things?

"@Slow!" +pp+ CD EF GA

The typesetter may now choose to print the annotation
"@Slow!" either above or below the note, depending on
the position of other symbols such as +pp+.

> 6. Clefs: a typo below "transpose=": effect instead of affect
Fixed.

> 7. Deprecated continuations: "the following fragment of code [...] was
> considered to be equivalent to [...]" but no further explanation. If it
> is not equivalent anymore, what's the difference? Or is any of the two
> notations illegal in the new standard? Please clarify.

Since the \ continuation mechanism has changed in the
new standard, the examples given in the section
"Deprecated continuations", will no longer work.

Actually, at the moment there are no two ABC programs
that interpret the \ in exactly the same way. The
reason is that the old rule was *so* complicated, that
no one interpreted it the same. That was the main
reason to change the rule to something simple, that
everyone can understand and use.

> 8. Stylesheet specification: Could you add an example of the use of $1-$4?

There is an example in the lyrics section:

 gf|e2dc B2A2|B2G2 E2D2|.G2.G2 GABc|d4 B2
w: Sa-ys my au-l' wan to your aul' wan\
   Will~ye come to the $3Wa-x-ies$0 dar-gle?

This would work together with something like:

%%setfont-3 Helvetica-Bold


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

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 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 11:41:39AM +0100, Bernard Hill wrote:
> 
> 
> "Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in intent) are very
> non-standard. Are they really necessary? I've never played from one and
> would actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f

See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/RRTuneBk/gettune/0c54.html
for an example of how they can be useful. Helpful for the typing, and
(IMO) more helpful in that they show the rules that apply, instead of
just confronting people with lots of accidental notes.

(note to self. fix middle sections, so that D maj. doesn't look
"strange" either)

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 12:26:09PM +0200, Bert Van Vreckem wrote:
> Bernard Hill wrote:
> >In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bert Van Vreckem
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> >>Bernard Hill wrote:
> >>
> >>>2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
> >>>dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
> >>>timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.
> >>
> >>It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've 
> >>come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's 
> >>Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.
> >
> >Thanks. But what does it mean? What would say an autoharp make of it,
> >say perhaps to make it a tremolo.
> 
> It means "play any ornamentation here". The exact meaning is unspecified.

I rather like ~ - "play a squiggle".

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 08:55:54PM +0200, I. Oppenheim wrote:
> 
> Please help me with identifying the errors and the
> mistakes in the draft.

1) It starts by saying "The ABC standard itself deals only with structured,
high-level information; how this information should be actually rendered by
e.g. a typesetter or a player program, is dealt with in a separate standard".

It then goes on to state where each field "will" be printed. This is at
least inconsistent, and I don't think this is the right place for this
level of detail.

Better (IMO) would be if the proposed style-sheet mechanism allowed a way
to control where, and which, fields the typesetting programs print, so that
people can decide for themselves how they'd like things printed (I want
different layouts for different purposes, for example) and still get
consistent behaviour across different programs.

 My "abc_rip", for instance, uses a "%%RR-TextFormat:"
magic header line, which is a "format string" sort of thing in which any
instances of T:, C:, etc are treated as fields and replaced by their values.
"Any" including any "%%" specials. Including a %TUNE variable which is replaced
by a picture of the tune (with no text), so that I can put things below as
well as above. That's how I manage to print a copyright string under the dots.
It's probably less than perfect, but for me it works better than anything else
I've seen.


2) I'd like more discussion of the redefining of A: as Author (of
lyrics), and consequent redefining of O: to hold the "area" information
that A: has been used for in the past.

Jack suggested this, and it may may well be a good idea, but I haven't
heard much comment from anyone else here, and I'd like to be sure we've
thought it through. I have an interest here, since I use A:==area heavily;
and since, as Jack noted, I use this with multiple O:'s, relying on human
intelligence to make sense of possible confusion, it wouldn't be a
simple editing job; so I'd like to be sure we all agree it's The Right
Thing To Do before I do it.

One thing I notice about the proposal for O: is that it introduces (for
the first time, I _think_) a hierarchical structuring of information
within a field (A: as area did that across different fields, of course,
and I agree with Jack that it's not altogether nice). I wonder if there
are maybe any catches to this ? One minor point, for example - the
recommendations for which fields to print where (see 1 above) would lead
to the whole lot getting printed, without any associated syntax for picking
out sub-fields (I might want to print just the country, as I can at the
moment, for example). 

Does any other software do anything with these "information" fields ?
There are possibilities with external programs, of course, like the
$ grep O: | cut -d ',' -f 1
example I gave earlier, which is why I argued (and repeated offlist to
Irwin) the case for most-significant-first ordering rather than Jack's
little-endian example.

Special-case treatment of the O: field. That's what bothers me. It's the
need for a delimiter character. My scripts, for example, which generate
the listings for my web collection - since I list (and allow searching)
these by country, and definitely don't want separate entries for, eg,
"England" and "England, NW" I'll have to pick out all info up to the
first comma. If I do that to any other field things'll go wrong, since
comma doesn't mean "delimiter" anywhere else (and I can't think of any
other character to which this wouldn't apply).

Which is not the end of the world, of course. I can do that if I have
to. But it's the sort of complication that makes me wonder if it's
really the right way to go.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:
>
>> 5. No mention of midline
>What do you mean?

Sorry, I abandoned a comment and forgot to complete it. I am thinking of
the midline field in Clefs.

>
>> 1. No ability to change clef in non-voiced music, the clef change is
>> only in the voicing section. This means you can't write music for viola
>> or cello.
>
>Please explain me what non-voiced music is, and how we
>should deal with it.

I should have said non-Multiple Voiced Music: ie that which does not
have any V: fields. All your clef definitions are in the Multiple Voice
music section, so how to write the clef for viola music is not clear.

>
>> Following the example in in "K: Key" that "K:Dphr ^f" would give a *key
>> sig* of 2 flats and 1 sharp, this imples that the previously-quoted
>> example "K:D =c" would have me put a key sig of F#, C# and then Cnat.
>> Which if course is nonsense.
>
>Nope.
>
>There are to supported syntaxes:
>[A] K: 
>[B] K: 
>
>Syntax A will _modify_ the key signature of the mode
>given, rather than simply append accidentals to it.
>Example:
>
>K:Dmaj =c  % will give F# Cnat
>
>Syntax B, which only contains the name of the tonic,
>and does not imply a mode, will allow you to spell out
>a key signature in full:
>
>K:D ^f =c % same meaning as above
>
>Note that in syntax B the tonic may be basically
>ignored by the parser; the tonic is only there to make
>the notation comprehensible to other users.

"Strange" key sigs such as the above (while clear in intent) are very
non-standard. Are they really necessary? I've never played from one and
would actually find it very difficult to play _b ^f

Anyway: have you abandoned the "global accidentals" idea? I thought it
very good actually. In fact some Bach is written that way - he writes a
key sig of 1 flat and "manually" flattens every E and ends on a G minor
chord!


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bert Van Vreckem]

I. Oppenheim wrote:
I hereby publicly release the third draft revision of
the ABC 2.0 standard:

Please help me with identifying the errors and the
mistakes in the draft.
First of all: Guido, Irwin: well done!

1. Information Fields section: can the additional notes on fields be put 
in alphabetical order?

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.

3. Ties and slurs: and nested slurs in particular. How should they be 
parsed? E.g. is

(CD (EF) GA)

the same as
_
CD EF GA  (i.e. the first slur starts at C and ends at F,
   -   the second slur starts at E and ends at A)
or

CD EF GA (1st slur starts at C and ends at A,
   -- 2nd slur starts at E and ends at F)
Here, the second option seems to make more sense to me, but in the 
example in the standard (CD (E) FG), I would prefer the first 
interpretation... Please clarify

4. Accompaniment chords: is that a complete enumeration? If so, there's 
a few missing: sus2, sus4, 6-5, 6-9, e.g. cannot be expressed with the 
specified syntax.

5. Annotations: "Using the '@' symbol leaves the exact placing of the 
string to the discretion of the interpreting program." This doesn't help 
me to understand how to use the @-symbol. Is this not part of the 
standard? Could you an example be included to clarify things?

6. Clefs: a typo below "transpose=": effect instead of affect

7. Deprecated continuations: "the following fragment of code [...] was 
considered to be equivalent to [...]" but no further explanation. If it 
is not equivalent anymore, what's the difference? Or is any of the two 
notations illegal in the new standard? Please clarify.

8. Stylesheet specification: Could you add an example of the use of $1-$4?



--
Bert Van Vreckem 
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and
oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital
ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Bernard Hill wrote:
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bert Van Vreckem
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
Bernard Hill wrote:

2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.
It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've 
come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's 
Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.
Thanks. But what does it mean? What would say an autoharp make of it,
say perhaps to make it a tremolo.
It means "play any ornamentation here". The exact meaning is unspecified.

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and
oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital
ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bert Van Vreckem
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Bernard Hill wrote:
>> 2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
>> dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
>> timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.
>
>It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've 
>come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's 
>Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.

Thanks. But what does it mean? What would say an autoharp make of it,
say perhaps to make it a tremolo.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[I. Oppenheim]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:

> 1. In the table of ABC fields and their usage you have U:user defined
> still saying !trill! rather than +trill+
Fixed.

> 2. In the section O: origin the "separator" is miss-spelled.
Fixed.

> 3. Shouldn't +..+ be deprecated for chords?
It has been deprecated since ages. If people think it
is useful, I will add a note about it.

> 1. Section Ties and Slurs: What does it mean to have a slur ending and
> starting on the same note? eg (E)

You may just ignore it. However, packages that support
Gregorian notation (i.e. Barfly) will attach meaning to
this.

> 2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
> dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
> timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.

It seems to have something to do with Irish music.
There is a picture of it in the symbols table.

> 3. I don't understand the sentence in K:Key which reads "It is possible
> to use the format K:  to explicitly define all the
> accidentals of a mode: K:D b e ^f". But see my comment (2) below.

An unfortunate typo. It should have been: K:D _b _e ^f
Fixed.


> 4. Continuation of input lines. The last sentence says "A double
> backslash (...) does not continue the current line but is interpreted as
> an actual backslash". But since an actual backslash means "continue the
> current line" this makes no sense. If a line is terminated with \\ then
> I would take that to mean the same as \.

No, an actual backslash is a backslash that is
interpreted as text, rather than as a continuation
mark.

E.G:
W: this line ends in a back-shlash\\

Of course, this will only make sense in string fields,
and not in general, so I will take this comment out
of this section to prevent further confusion.
Fixed.

> 5. No mention of midline
What do you mean?

> 1. No ability to change clef in non-voiced music, the clef change is
> only in the voicing section. This means you can't write music for viola
> or cello.

Please explain me what non-voiced music is, and how we
should deal with it.

> Following the example in in "K: Key" that "K:Dphr ^f" would give a *key
> sig* of 2 flats and 1 sharp, this imples that the previously-quoted
> example "K:D =c" would have me put a key sig of F#, C# and then Cnat.
> Which if course is nonsense.

Nope.

There are to supported syntaxes:
[A] K: 
[B] K: 

Syntax A will _modify_ the key signature of the mode
given, rather than simply append accidentals to it.
Example:

K:Dmaj =c  % will give F# Cnat

Syntax B, which only contains the name of the tonic,
and does not imply a mode, will allow you to spell out
a key signature in full:

K:D ^f =c % same meaning as above

Note that in syntax B the tonic may be basically
ignored by the parser; the tonic is only there to make
the notation comprehensible to other users.


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Bernard Hill wrote:
2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.
It is used at least in Irish music as a general ornamentation mark. I've 
come across the notation a.o. in "Traditional Irish Music: Karen Tweed's 
Irish Choice," Dave Mallinson Publications, 1994.

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and
oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital
ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Dear abcusers,
>
>I hereby publicly release the third draft revision of
>the ABC 2.0 standard:
>http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/abc/abc2-draft.html
>
>--- Due to popular demand, +...+ is now the preferred
>syntax for notating decorations; !...! has been
>deprecated, although it is still allowed.
>
>--- Backslash sequences have been added for notating
>macrons, ogoneks, carons, breves, long Hungarian
>umlauts, and dotted letters in a portable way.
>
>--- Quite a lot of PNG pictures have been added to
>illustrate the different ABC constructs.
>
>
>I would like to ask you all to read the proposed
>standard. I would appreciate your constructive
>criticism.
>
>The focus is now on finalizing this draft; therefore I
>will be very reluctant with adding new features to the
>standard as it is now. These will probably have to wait
>for the next standardization attempt.
>
>Please help me with identifying the errors and the
>mistakes in the draft.
>

Errors:

1. In the table of ABC fields and their usage you have U:user defined
still saying !trill! rather than +trill+

2. In the section O: origin the "separator" is miss-spelled.

3. Shouldn't +..+ be deprecated for chords?


Requests for clarification:

1. Section Ties and Slurs: What does it mean to have a slur ending and
starting on the same note? eg (E)

2. What's a "roll" (+roll+ in the decorations)? I've checked 6 music
dictionaries and books on notation and the only rolls mentioned are for
timpani or other percussion and notated as either "tr" or a tremolo.

3. I don't understand the sentence in K:Key which reads "It is possible
to use the format K:  to explicitly define all the
accidentals of a mode: K:D b e ^f". But see my comment (2) below.

4. Continuation of input lines. The last sentence says "A double
backslash (...) does not continue the current line but is interpreted as
an actual backslash". But since an actual backslash means "continue the
current line" this makes no sense. If a line is terminated with \\ then
I would take that to mean the same as \.

5. No mention of midline

Missing points:

1. No ability to change clef in non-voiced music, the clef change is
only in the voicing section. This means you can't write music for viola
or cello.


Disagreements:


1. Unusual key signatures such as "K:D =c". In a previous standard this
referred to a "global accidental" so that the key sig was D and every
subsequent c was naturalised. Fine.

Following the example in in "K: Key" that "K:Dphr ^f" would give a *key
sig* of 2 flats and 1 sharp, this imples that the previously-quoted
example "K:D =c" would have me put a key sig of F#, C# and then Cnat.
Which if course is nonsense. Much more standard to implement as the
paragraph above.

2. |: at the beginning of a section is not ugly. And I do not like being
forced to accept incorrect notation in that if a |: is missing then the
repeat should be made from the previous double bar.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[Richard Robinson]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 11:15:14PM -0700, John Walsh wrote:
> Wil Macaulay writes:
> >
> >>--- Due to popular demand, +...+ is now the preferred
> >>syntax for notating decorations; !...! has been
> >>deprecated, although it is still allowed.
> >> 
> >
> >I thought **  was proposed? although deprecated, ++ is still 
> around
> >as an alternate to [...] for chords.

They were both proposed.

>   In addition, +..+ looks ugly, to me, at least.  Looked ugly for
> chords, still looks ugly for decorations.  Oh well.  But this raises
> another question: shouldn't the standard mention obsolete notation to
> alert future developers to stuff which might be expected to show up in old
> abc files? (It's not a very long list: +..+ for chords, s..s for slurs,
> and [1, [2 for repeats come to mind. **, *, + and/or !---depending on what
> is finally decided---are other cases in point.  There are probably a
> couple more, but not many.) Abc2mtex has some flags: oldchords, oldslurs,
> which allow it to process these; I don't know if other programs handle
> them at all. Should they?

AT least to list them, would be a good idea, so that if someone meets
them in a tune and their program doesn't handle them, they'll know what
they mean and be able to do the appropriate translation by hand.


WRT [ repeats - this document gives the impression they are the
preferred form, all the examples given use it.

I notice that the way it notes that "When adjacent to bar lines, these
can be shortened to  |1 and :|2" give the implication that "[" repeat
constructions can be used in mid bar. I've just checked, and see that
the abc2pses will do this - is it generally acepted ? If so, there is
reason to not regard these as obsolete, since this is something that
can't be done with the "|1" form (following on from which, I also
notice none of them accept that "A dotted bar line can be notated by
preceding it with a dot, e.g. `.|'")

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] ABC Standard 2.0 revision III

[John Walsh]

Wil Macaulay writes:
>
>>--- Due to popular demand, +...+ is now the preferred
>>syntax for notating decorations; !...! has been
>>deprecated, although it is still allowed.
>> 
>
>I thought **  was proposed? although deprecated, ++ is still 
around
>as an alternate to [...] for chords.
>

In addition, +..+ looks ugly, to me, at least.  Looked ugly for
chords, still looks ugly for decorations.  Oh well.  But this raises
another question: shouldn't the standard mention obsolete notation to
alert future developers to stuff which might be expected to show up in old
abc files? (It's not a very long list: +..+ for chords, s..s for slurs,
and [1, [2 for repeats come to mind. **, *, + and/or !---depending on what
is finally decided---are other cases in point.  There are probably a
couple more, but not many.) Abc2mtex has some flags: oldchords, oldslurs,
which allow it to process these; I don't know if other programs handle
them at all. Should they?

Cheers,
John Walsh


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