James, we're at cross purposes here. In fact I think you are at cross-purposes with everyone else.
We know that the existing Q: field works and it's well defined BUT Some people (I think it was Frank that started it) say (and I'm putting words into their mouths) "Look, the Q: syntax is all very well for controlling the speed of a player program, but what I want to be able to do is to say 'play this at an Allegro speed' (or 'Lento' or some other word whose meaning I know. And what 'Allegro' means is about 120 per minute. I don't mind writing down what Allegro means once, but I shouldn't have to write it every time. I mean Allegro is Allegro". So he wanted to write <some definition of Allegro here> Q:Allegro Well if Allegro is 120 then maybe this should sort of ought to mean in some ideal world Q:120 but that is already well defined and it doesn't mean what we want at all!! (whether or not L: changes in the tune it still isn't what we want).. So we find we've begged some questions. OK, so Allegro is 120 per minute, but 120 of WHAT per minute?? It then became clear that if you are playing in 6/8 it would mean 120 3/8 notes but if you were playing in 2/4 it would mean 120 1/4 notes and if you were playing in 4/4 it would p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y mean 120 1/2 notes and then there's the Balkan and Turkish stuff So now we had the notion that we need to define a "beat" and it's not the same as the L: value. So we played with Define "Allegro=120" (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) X:100 T:Foo L:1/8 Define Beat=1/4 (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) K:G Q:Allegro or else maybe Define "Allegro=120" (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) X:100 T:Foo L:1/8 K:G Q:1/4=Allegro where the fraction in the Q: seems to be defining what we were calling the "Beat". or else maybe any of several options that were floating around on this thread. And then there's the question of what's a sensible thing to display or print ? Probably something like "Allegro" or possibly ".| = Allegro" or possibly ".|=120 (Allegro)" or possibly it's up to the particular display/print program or a user-settable option or... I hope this recap has helped. We still have the "really simple" matter of nailing it down and making a decision! Laurie ----- Original Message ----- From: James Allwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 9:09 AM Subject: Re: [abcusers] something really simple > On Fri 16 Nov 2001 at 04:20PM -0800, John Walsh wrote: > > I haven't been following closely enough to be sure, but I have the > > impression that the idea of basing the tempo on the L: field has been > > pretty well discarded, except possibly as a legacy from abc 1.6 in the > > (deprecated) Q:120 syntax. True? I hope so, since it's an unstable > > indicator: there can be times when the user makes an in-line change of the > > L: field to accomodate, say, a couple of bars chock-full of 1/32 > > notes---makes it easier to write, and to read too, for that matter--- and > > it's a bit disconcerting to hear the playback speed up by a factor of four > > for for just those bars. > > > > This was resolved ages ago. Q:120 takes the value of unit note length > from the header. If there is a new L: field in the body of the tune, > the tempo does not change with it because (as you point out) this would > result in nonsense. > > 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
