> A cautionary note here - how _would_ your parser behave on discovering
> it was asked to parse one of these 'illegal' constructs?
I'm in agreement with the point you're making but not with any of your
examples...
> there is a significant number of existing tune files (with hundreds
> of tunes) that have things like:
> {a}(Gab)
> gracenote outside a slur - (oh, but I thought a gracenote was a
> decoration and so should be applied to the directly following note...)
This has a clear meaning if it's being played on a fiddle - change bow
direction after the gracenote and keep it going the same way through
the slurred notes. And it's found in a lot of the 18th century sources
I've used (sometimes just to squeeze stuff into limited space, sometimes
with deliberate intention).
> a > :: b
> broken rhythm across a barline or repeat (oh, but I thought a broken
> rhythm couldn't have intervening barlines...)
Nothing in any standard to prevent that that I know of, and it can make
the source more readable. (No reason why the construct shouldn't cross
part boundaries, either, or have non-local meaning in the presence of
alternate repeat sections; it can get complicated but it's always well
defined).
> a > (bdc)
> broken rhythm outside a slur. (oh, but... you get the idea...)
This is obviously legal and omitting it would make some kinds of
hornpipe bowing an unreadable mess. See Honeyman's "Strathspey,
Reel and Hornpipe Tutor" for examples: he systematically slurs the
short note of a dotted pair to the following long one. (However,
I have never put a space between a broken-rhythm marker and its
preceding note, as you did there; am I obeying a nonexistent rule?
I'd been thinking that "a 2" and "a > b" would cause equal problems
to parsers).
> Doesn't really matter if _I_ think the abc standard doesn't allow
> that, people have done it and have invested time and effort in
> notating tunes that way.
We can say something stronger: usually they knew what they meant
by it and had consistent, understandable expectations of how ABC
software should interpret it. Implementations need to go beyond
simply accepting such syntax, they need to handle its semantics.
>>|| I quote Gardner Read "Music Notation" page 69 "Intervals (involving
>>|| two note heads) or chords (three or more note heads) may use a single
>>|| stem to join all the notes as a unit provided they are of equal
>>|| value".
>>| 18th century music printers and 20th century editors of guitar music
>>| followed no such rule.
>> Just because some people don't follow a rule correctly doesn't mean
>> that it doesn't apply.
Rubbish. The consequence of that attitude is that your software
doesn't apply to my music. If Read's dogmas get in the way of
such a straightforward task as creating a type-facsimile of an
old-fashioned but instantly readable and unambiguous piece of staff
notation, they're roadkill.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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