>> Here's another riddle for the group: >> V:1 >> L:1/4 >> V:2 >> L:1/8 >> V:1 >> >> What's the value of 'L' now? >> >> Likewise for key, meter and tempo. > > Each voice is a completely separate tune, so they can have different > default note lengths (common), metres (rarely) and even keys. Not > sure about tempo though, since all the voices have to play together.
I've never been able to predict exactly what BarFly will do with such constructs, so I've generally written them using the explicit [..] notation: [V:1 L:1/8] etc. A bit verbose, unreadable on anything less than a twenty-inch monitor, but semantically harmless. But your decision that "each voice is a completely separate tune" is not implied in any way by the original standard and makes ABC simply unusable for many purposes. I wanted to transcribe some Klezmer tunes from the Manchester Klezmer site: I can't do it using BarFly. Some are in forms like ABACA and in two voices. There is no way to write that in BarFly without copying part A out three times: you don't let the part construct name sections of *music*, only segments of a single voice. I don't want to be responsible for ABC written so redundantly, so I'm not doing the transcriptions until BarFly's semantics for P: is changed to handle it. What ought to happen is that any section delimited by a P: line should behave like a separate tune, except that when it gets played is controlled by the P: line in the header, and what follows the P: on that line may be in a different typestyle from the contents of a T: line. Practically, I use that semantics all the time when assembling or disassembling sets of monophonic tunes: interchange T: and P: and you're nearly done. BarFly's present semantics makes that impossible for anything with more than one voice. And I can't think of *any* music that's more easily notated by making V: global to P:. =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
