On Sun, 2002-04-07 at 11:43, Jeff Bigler wrote:
> I'm particularly interested in dynamics and their
> associated markings (crescendo, diminuendo, etc.), and I'm not aware of
> any existing abc-to-anything-else program that deals with them. (And
> I'm not enough of a programmer to write my own!) As a classical
> musician who occasionally plays folk, I personally find the absence of
> dynamics to be ABC's biggest limitation.
I know that at least abcm2ps supports hairpins with !crescendo(!,
!crescendo)!, !diminuendo(!, and !diminuendo)!, as well as dynamics with
!ppp! through !fff! (probably !pppp! and !ffff! too). abc2midi supports
the dynamics but not the hairpins. From my rusty knowledge of the MIDI
file format, hairpins would be impossible (?) to implement on long
notes, although it would be possible to adjust the dynamic level before
each individual note to do (say) crescendos over harp runs.
> As an aside, I play a lot of late-20th-century (and 21st-century)
> classical music. There are several unusual notations that have come
> into usage since the 1950s that are not (yet) implemented in ABC. I
> could mention them on this list as I run across them, if there's
> interest. I haven't, largely because the bother-to-worth ratio seems
> too high--these would serve a very small subset of the ABC community,
> and some of the notations would be difficult to define or implement in a
> plain-text system.
Well, I'd be somewhat interested; I have played a bit of such music,
although not much. (Mostly the more "normal" modern composers -- John
Adams, Alan Hovhaness, etc.). I think the ABC draft already includes
some interesting things like snap pizzicatos, horn rasps, and so forth,
which are at least early 20th century, so your additions may not be out
of place at all. As others have said, those that don't need them don't
have to use them. :) Certainly there are some very common modern
notations such as durations of notes and rests measured in seconds,
approximate notes (e.g. "x" noteheads), and others, that ABC does not
have, but would be easy enough to implement (at least for notation
programs). There are other notations from the 19th century (tremolos,
either on the same note or between two notes, come to mind) that are
also not implemented but would perhaps be more difficult, especially for
player programs.
[Phew. Please ignore the painfully awkward sentence construction in the
above paragraph. Time change plus early church service will do that to
one.]
- Eric
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