James, it looks as though you missed the beginning of this sub-thread: The problem was if we define words to mean particular rates e.g. lento=60, Allegro=120, vigorous skipping=95 etc, it begs the questions "60 what?", "120 what?" etc. 120 L units seems to often give silly answers, so we are searching for a better answer. The answer seemed to be "120 beats" where a "beat" might be a dance step for a dance or something a little less tangible, (but still quite clear to a musician) in other cases.
So we were inventing yet more syntax to define a "beat" and were thinking if there was a sensible default if it were not explicitly defined. The thread below then picks up saying the L: value is not clever as this default. L. ----- Original Message ----- From: James Allwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 2:14 PM Subject: Re: [abcusers] something really simple > On Wed 14 Nov 2001 at 11:24AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Laurie Griffiths wrote: > > > > > I'm not 100% sure what the right default is in the absence of a > > > "beat=". Is it the L value (explicit or implied)? > > Yes. See the 1.6 standard. Q:100 means 100 unit note lengths per > minute. > > > > > I'd rather stay away from L:. A quick look through some of my collection > > shows that it would give the wrong beat more often than not. > > > > Then presumably you are not using the Q: field as defined. > > James Allwright > > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html > > To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html