Re: [abcusers] something really simple
On Fri 16 Nov 2001 at 04:20PM -0800, John Walsh wrote: I haven't been following closely enough to be sure, but I have the impression that the idea of basing the tempo on the L: field has been pretty well discarded, except possibly as a legacy from abc 1.6 in the (deprecated) Q:120 syntax. True? I hope so, since it's an unstable indicator: there can be times when the user makes an in-line change of the L: field to accomodate, say, a couple of bars chock-full of 1/32 notes---makes it easier to write, and to read too, for that matter--- and it's a bit disconcerting to hear the playback speed up by a factor of four for for just those bars. This was resolved ages ago. Q:120 takes the value of unit note length from the header. If there is a new L: field in the body of the tune, the tempo does not change with it because (as you point out) this would result in nonsense. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] FYI - work in progress
Hello all, since no one else raised her hand, I have taken the sweet burden on my hefty shoulders: I've started writing the new ABC draft. Design goals: a) 100% upwards compatibility with current ABC; b) main target is western classical music; c) explicitly designed for computer input/output; d) 100% upwards compatibility with _most_ existing software. I hope to succeed. When it's ready (don't hold your breath), I'll post it to the list for comments and public munching and digestion. Ciao, Guido =8-) -- Guido Gonzato, Ph.D. gonzato at sci . univr . it - Linux system manager Universita' di Verona (Italy), Facolta' di Scienze MM. FF. NN. Ca' Vignal II, Strada Le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona (Italy) Tel. +39 045 8027990; Fax +39 045 8027958 --- Timeas hominem unius libri To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] Agreed resolutions
A while ago James Allwright said - The problem of abritrary text has come up before and "_ " is the agreed syntax for arbitrary text and more recently - This was resolved ages ago. Q:120 takes the value of unit note length from the header. If there is a new L: field in the body of the tune, the tempo does not change with it ... Are these agreements (and others?) documented anywhere? Bryan Creer
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
James, we're at cross purposes here. In fact I think you are at cross-purposes with everyone else. We know that the existing Q: field works and it's well defined BUT Some people (I think it was Frank that started it) say (and I'm putting words into their mouths) Look, the Q: syntax is all very well for controlling the speed of a player program, but what I want to be able to do is to say 'play this at an Allegro speed' (or 'Lento' or some other word whose meaning I know. And what 'Allegro' means is about 120 per minute. I don't mind writing down what Allegro means once, but I shouldn't have to write it every time. I mean Allegro is Allegro. So he wanted to write some definition of Allegro here Q:Allegro Well if Allegro is 120 then maybe this should sort of ought to mean in some ideal world Q:120 but that is already well defined and it doesn't mean what we want at all!! (whether or not L: changes in the tune it still isn't what we want).. So we find we've begged some questions. OK, so Allegro is 120 per minute, but 120 of WHAT per minute?? It then became clear that if you are playing in 6/8 it would mean 120 3/8 notes but if you were playing in 2/4 it would mean 120 1/4 notes and if you were playing in 4/4 it would p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y mean 120 1/2 notes and then there's the Balkan and Turkish stuff So now we had the notion that we need to define a beat and it's not the same as the L: value. So we played with Define Allegro=120 (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) X:100 T:Foo L:1/8 Define Beat=1/4 (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) K:G Q:Allegro or else maybe Define Allegro=120 (using some syntax or other, but probably NOT that one!) X:100 T:Foo L:1/8 K:G Q:1/4=Allegro where the fraction in the Q: seems to be defining what we were calling the Beat. or else maybe any of several options that were floating around on this thread. And then there's the question of what's a sensible thing to display or print ? Probably something like Allegro or possibly .| = Allegro or possibly .|=120 (Allegro) or possibly it's up to the particular display/print program or a user-settable option or... I hope this recap has helped. We still have the really simple matter of nailing it down and making a decision! Laurie - Original Message - From: James Allwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 9:09 AM Subject: Re: [abcusers] something really simple On Fri 16 Nov 2001 at 04:20PM -0800, John Walsh wrote: I haven't been following closely enough to be sure, but I have the impression that the idea of basing the tempo on the L: field has been pretty well discarded, except possibly as a legacy from abc 1.6 in the (deprecated) Q:120 syntax. True? I hope so, since it's an unstable indicator: there can be times when the user makes an in-line change of the L: field to accomodate, say, a couple of bars chock-full of 1/32 notes---makes it easier to write, and to read too, for that matter--- and it's a bit disconcerting to hear the playback speed up by a factor of four for for just those bars. This was resolved ages ago. Q:120 takes the value of unit note length from the header. If there is a new L: field in the body of the tune, the tempo does not change with it because (as you point out) this would result in nonsense. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] FYI - work in progress
May I (rather humbly since I'm not doing the work) suggest that you do not wait until it's all complete and then publish it all at once. It would cause too much reading load so that some people would not read it all for months and then, several months late, object like mad. It would also be liable to cause too many threads to spawn at once by those who did read it. If you can find your way to publishing in pieces then it would be better. Laurie - Original Message - From: Guido Gonzato [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:25 AM Subject: [abcusers] FYI - work in progress Hello all, since no one else raised her hand, I have taken the sweet burden on my hefty shoulders: I've started writing the new ABC draft. Design goals: a) 100% upwards compatibility with current ABC; b) main target is western classical music; c) explicitly designed for computer input/output; d) 100% upwards compatibility with _most_ existing software. I hope to succeed. When it's ready (don't hold your breath), I'll post it to the list for comments and public munching and digestion. Ciao, Guido =8-) -- Guido Gonzato, Ph.D. gonzato at sci . univr . it - Linux system manager Universita' di Verona (Italy), Facolta' di Scienze MM. FF. NN. Ca' Vignal II, Strada Le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona (Italy) Tel. +39 045 8027990; Fax +39 045 8027958 --- Timeas hominem unius libri To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
Hello, Laurie Griffiths wrote: So we find we've begged some questions. OK, so Allegro is 120 per minute, but 120 of WHAT per minute?? It then became clear that if you are playing in 6/8 it would mean 120 3/8 notes but if you were playing in 2/4 it would mean 120 1/4 notes and if you were playing in 4/4 it would p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y mean 120 1/2 notes and then there's the Balkan and Turkish stuff i did not participate in this beat topic since I do not use any of these classical tempo words in my music (but sometimes others). But, maybe I make an idiot of me by askin such, why if the beat changes with the meter, the meter (M:) isnt the field which defines by its content (I do *not* mean to add an extention to it) what Allegro (~120 beats per minute) means. what Laurie describes above is a clear connection between M:6/8 or M:4/4 or M:2/4 , M:C, M:C| and the beat of Q:Allegro. I belive it is not really neccessary to define the beat of allegro in Balkan music (like 3+3+2), I've never heard of such a definition in any other music notation context. And for sure it would be an abuse of the classical music's tempo word Allegro. And if ever it will be possible to use 3+3+2/8 in an abc M: field, we can find a way to define allegro under such a M: field. Simon -- Simon Wascher - Vienna, Austria http://members.chello.at/simon.wascher/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Tempo indicators
James == James Allwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: James 1. Musical terms would be better put in a new field (I think q: has been James suggested) than added to the existing Q: field. Possibly N: would be James acceptable. No, it wouldn't. N: is used for notes. I use it for describing differences between my transcription and the original I was transcribing from. Some printing programs have a style for printing it, which can be modified from the command line, and which is suitable for annotations of a transcription, but not for printing tempo indications. It certainly shouldn't be co-opted for anything to do with playback. -- Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139 To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
On Mon 19 Nov 2001 at 01:34PM -, Laurie Griffiths wrote: Some people (I think it was Frank that started it) say (and I'm putting words into their mouths) Look, the Q: syntax is all very well for controlling the speed of a player program, but what I want to be able to do is to say 'play this at an Allegro speed' (or 'Lento' or some other word whose meaning I know. And what 'Allegro' means is about 120 per minute. I don't mind writing down what Allegro means once, but I shouldn't have to write it every time. I mean Allegro is Allegro. I think we need to know whether Allegro is one of a small set of well-defined tempo descriptors (in which case it would be really nice to have the complete set together with their definitions) or one tempo definition in a large and vague set that spans the complete Italian language and is interpreted at the performer's discretion. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
James Allwright wrote: I think we need to know whether Allegro is one of a small set of well-defined tempo descriptors (in which case it would be really nice to have the complete set together with their definitions) or one tempo definition in a large and vague set that spans the complete Italian language there are french baroque tempo definitions, german expressionist tempo definitions , tempo definitions in all languages of the world which *do* have their regional value. It would really be extremly rigid to stuck with those oldfashioned classical music's set of italian tempo descriptors which have in no way a consistent well defined generally accepted meaning as every musicologist can demonstrate. Simon -- Simon Wascher - Vienna, Austria http://members.chello.at/simon.wascher/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Agreed resolutions
James Allwright said - The "_ " construct is in the draft standard and probably documented in the application notes for a number of abc applications. I concede. You are right. (Why didn't you say this in the first place?) You could have added this from the draft standard - $ A meter change within the body of the tune will not change the $ unit note length (unlike one in the header where no L: field is $ present). However, this is still the DRAFT standard which contains a lot of other things, not all of which have been agreed. Until they appear in THE standard how is anyone to know what has been agreed and what hasn't? Bryan Creer
Re: [abcusers] Agreed resolutions
On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 04:25:45PM +, James Allwright wrote: The Q: field is documented reasonably well by the 1.6 standard. In the long distant past there was a similar problem caused by the standard stating that an implicit value for the L: field can be deduced from the value of the M: field. A naive reader of the standard might ask Does the unit note length (L:) change if the meter (M:) changes in the middle of a tune ?. If they are tied together in this way, you get very peculiar results, so it is important that unit note length is stated or deduced once at the beginning of a tune and only changes thereafter if explicitly re-defined. Likewise, dynamic re-definition of tempo when something else changes is undesirable. I think this is really just common sense. At least abc2ps will reset the L: value if you change the M: value. It results in stuff that looks like this: abc|[M:2/2][L:1/4]ab|[M:3/4][L:1/4]cde Very ugly. -- Taral [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message is digitally signed. Please PGP encrypt mail to me. Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it. -- Florence Ambrose msg02832/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
Hello, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Simon Wascher wrote: why if the beat changes with the meter, the meter (M:) isnt the field which defines by its content (I do *not* mean to add an extention to it) what Allegro (~120 beats per minute) means. However, if the note value of the beat is compound (dotted), there is no whole number that can represent it accurately, so a smaller note value has to be used. For instance, if the composer intended two beats per measure, with a dotted-quarter beat, the only accurate way to write it would be something like 2/2.666... For obvious reasons, we write 6/8 instead. The problem is that by doing this, traditional notation breaks its own rules. 6/8 time seems to imply that there are actually six beats per measure, and that the eighth note defines the beat. to me as an traditional musican, this is not a broken rule its simply an special rule to dotted rhythms: 3/8 equals one beat. so if I want to write three beats in dotted rhythms I use 6/4 time. One problem is with 5/8 which has two beats (3+2 or 2+3 ; I do not know how to fit this into a classical allegro recipe) wheras 5/4 has five beats :-) . And to complicate the matter further, sometimes this *is* what the composer intended. composers ask for everything and the opposite, composing is mainly a game about establishing rules to break them. The question at this point seems to be whether we want the standard to get it right all of the time (define Allegro as 120, define the beat for each piece); get it wrong only sometimes (define Allegro as 120, guess at the beat); or get it wrong a great deal of the time (define Allegro as 1/4=120, even in 6/8, damn the beat). I think in most cases defing allegro to the beat given in the M: field under the presumtion that 3/8 = one beat will be sufficient in 95% of all cases. In other cases the transcriber has to redefine the beat. I belive it is not really neccessary to define the beat of allegro in Balkan music (like 3+3+2), I've never heard of such a definition in any other music notation context. This kind of thing happens quite often in newer compositions, usually implied by the note beaming, but sometimes written out explicitly in the meter (e.g., 3+2 over 8 instead of 5 over 8). Some notation software allows this... I believe Finale is one of them. Yes, yes of course, I use this stuff too. What I wanted to say is I've never heard of a definition for *allegro* in 3+3+2 rhytms in any other music notation context (a definition for a correct tempo for *allegro* in 3+3+2 time ). No question compound rhythms *do* exist (and Finale supports them). It seems I did not write too clear. Simon Simon Wascher - Vienna, Austria http://members.chello.at/simon.wascher/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
I belive it is not really neccessary to define the beat of allegro in Balkan music (like 3+3+2), I've never heard of such a definition in any other music notation context. And for sure it would be an abuse of the classical music's tempo word Allegro. I just fished out my copy of Maud Karpeles' Folk Songs of Europe (1956). She has: - a Latvian song in 3/4:4/4, Moderato patetico - a Czech song in 2/4:3/4, Andante - a Hungarian song with no time signature, Parlando - a Romanian song, ditto, Vivo - a Macedonian song in 7/16, Allegro giocoso - a Dutch song mixing 9/8, 6/8 and 3/8, Allegro - an English song in 5/4, Allegretto e semplice etc. Italian tempo names are used all the time by ethnomusicologists. Or if you want one from an entirely non-Western context, here's one from a collection of Kurdish folk songs. The songs are given in the original Kurdish, the commentary is in Turkish, and the tempo markings are entirely in Italian. No metronome marks at all and no explanation of the markings; the reader is expected to know, and if they'd gone through the standard Turkish high school music syllabus, they would. X:1 T:Hey lo, Seni B:Mehmet Bayrak: Kurt Halk Turkuleri, Ozge Yayinlari, 1991 Z:Jack Campin 2001 M:8/8 L:1/8 Q:Moderato N:Bar 6 is (3B,/F/E/- E E/ D D C- C (3D/(D/C/)| in the N:book, which doesn't add up so I'm assuming it's a typo K:B Minor AF2 A/F/ A F2A/F/ | AF2 A/F/ F E (D E/)F/ | FE2 E/D/ D C2D/E/ | F DD CC B,- B, (3C/(D/C/) | E/D/ D/C/ C B,- B, B, B,2 | (3B,/F/E/- EE DD C- C (3D/(D/C/) | F DD CC B,- B, (3C/(D/C/) | E DD CC B,- B,- (3B,/B,/B,/|] And if ever it will be possible to use 3+3+2/8 in an abc M: field, we can find a way to define allegro under such a M: field. I don't understand this at all. Why would you want to roll tempo definitions into a field already designed for something entirely different? Are you suggesting this would make it *easier*? How? === http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ === To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] something really simple
Laurie Griffiths wrote: James, we're at cross purposes here. In fact I think you are at cross-purposes with everyone else. We know that the existing Q: field works and it's well defined BUT Some people (I think it was Frank that started it) It was Jack, actually. James Allwright wrote: I think we need to know whether Allegro is one of a small set of well-defined tempo descriptors (in which case it would be really nice to have the complete set together with their definitions) or one tempo definition in a large and vague set that spans the complete Italian language and is interpreted at the performer's discretion. There is no small set of well-defined tempo descriptors. Nor are the tempo indicators necessarily in Italian. Basically, the composer can use any words in any language he wants. Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Departures and Discussions
Jean-Francois == Jean-Francois Moine [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jean-Francois Sure I should tell everyone the changes I did to satisfy their Jean-Francois needs, but, as it is often done after a while in a unstable release, Jean-Francois I hoped the concerned people had a look and get the new stuff by Jean-Francois themselves. This would be the case if there were only one ABC application that we all had to support. It isn't the case if when you don't offer a feature or bugfix there's another application that might, or a workaround that someone gets used to using. Jean-Francois Anyway, what is this pretty minor bugfix you are talking about? The one I reported to you several years ago that I felt you ignored is the behavior of two eighth notes separated by the end of the line (and not by a space) when the -c option is being used. I feel strongly that they should *not* be beamed. I posted a list of bugs, misfeatures, and enhancements that I really need for my work a few weeks ago. I don't seem to be able to find it by searching the web, so I'll forward it to you off list. Not all of them are in abcm2ps. The fact that (the last I looked) abcm2ps doesn't support breves and longas (when abctab2ps and abc2ly do) means I'm not really following abcm2ps development very closely. -- Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139 (If I haven't invited you to my party on December 16, I'm sure it's an oversight.) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
