>> Is there some abc software for percussion notation? > Except for standard stuff like the Xs or other "strange" symbols > for cymbals, etc. and except for rolls, I'm not sure there is > anything you couldn't notate with standard ABC. Maybe there's > something I'm forgetting.
Which hand whacks what when. I suggested an approach to this in the keep-it-simple spirit of ABC some while ago. A lot of percussion scores use a one-line staff for each instrument, with the note stems going up for the right hand and down for the left. I suggested this could be done with a new kind of key signature (as there already is for Highland pipes), say "K:P" and two notes (as well as rests) "u" (stem-up, right) and "d" (stem- down, left). Some instruments comprise one object hit by both hands, others use several that either hand might hit. There doesn't seem to be any alternative to splitting each object into two separate voices if either hand might hit it. That gives you something like this, using an extension of BarFly's voice syntax, confining the "K:P" declarations to the header (a voice is never going to switch between being percussion and something else in mid-piece, is it?). The book has one ordinary 5-line staff and one single-line percussion staff. The "merge" command says to put both hands on one staff (not everybody does that - Turkish practice seems to be to use one line for each hand). X:1 T:749 O:Petrijanec, Croatia B:Vinko Zganec: Narodne Popijevke Hrvatskog Zagorja (Zagreb, 1950) M:2/4 L:1/8 Q:1/4=80 V:1 V:2 K:P % drum right V:3 K:P merge % drum left K:G V:1 (d/e/d) .B.B |(d/e/d) .c.c |(df/).f/ (f.e) |(e.d) .d.d | V:2 u z u2 | z u z2 | uz u2 | z u z2 | V:3 z d z2 | d z d2 | zd z2 | d z d2 | % V:1 (d/e/d) .B.B |(d/e/d) .c.c |.d.d (d/e/f) | gg/g/ g z | V:2 u z u2 | z u z2 | u z u2 | zu z2 | V:3 z d z2 | d z d2 | z d z2 | dz d2 | % V:1 DD (D/E/F)|.G(G/A/ B/A/.B)|.c.A (A/^G/A)|.B.G (G/F/G)| V:2 uz u2 | z u z2 | u z u2 | z u z2 | V:3 zd z2 | d z d2 | z d z2 | d z d2 | % V:1 DD (D/E/F)|.G(G/A/ B/A/.B)|.c.A (A/B/A) |.G(G/F/ G)z |] V:2 uz u2 | z u z2 | u z u2 | z u z2 |] V:3 zd z2 | d z d2 | z d z2 | d z d2 |] This covers a vast range of percussion idioms, from Highland pipe bands to djembe ensembles to Turkish davul/zurna music to south-east Asian gamelan. It does NOT cover things like rattles and scrapers, where you can continuously vary the sound, so it won't do for Latin American music. One thing at a time... =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
