On 27 Oct 2005, at 13:51, Myscha wrote: > --- In abcusers@yahoogroups.com, Frank Nordberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> I agree, but that's really up to the program developers. The de facto >> standard will always be whatever the abc applications support. >> >> >> Frank Nordberg >> http://www.musicaviva.com > > I still want to emphasize that to me, as a musician, the value of ABC > notation is its simplicity and transportability on and off the > computer. If I have a melody line and a few chord symbols I have > everything I want as a performer. > > If more complex notation is needed (and it probably will be as the > notation becomes more widely adopted) can it be included in such a way > that it does not interfere with the readability of the current > standard for melody line/chord symbols?
That's a very important point, and one which I've been arguing for years. Even the addition of guitar chords to the melody line makes it harder to read, and once you also add lots of inline fields and bits of text between exclamation marks, readability goes out of the window. I've always resisted the !..! format, and BarFly still doesn't accept it. In BarFly you can define a single letter (in the range H..Z) to mean any of the symbols that the program understands. Single letters cause much less visual interference than text between exclamation marks, but they're still not ideal. What is really needed is a new field similar to w:, which would be followed by a line of symbols to be aligned to the notes in the melody line above. That way the melody line could be kept clean > > Although programming is not my specialist field, the idea of some kind > of command delimiter, as suggested previously, to delimit more complex > commands from the melody line would probably do a lot to keep the > simplicity while adding power. Quite. Phil Taylor ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/T8sf5C/tzNLAA/TtwFAA/mjFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abcusers/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
