Re: [abcusers] Muse2 - pre-announcement, call for ideas

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Thanks for your thoughts.

My current thinking is to just disable save, which would indeed give you
what you want.  It looks like I will be implementing this Saturday so I just
have some time for some last minute thoughts and changes of mind [looks at
clock - oh, it *is* Saturday - well, after I've had some sleep is what I
meant].  Thanks for your thoughts.

Jeesh, they could even use the Muse2 "invent some chords to go along with
this melody" to harmonise Edinburgh (sorry, "Embro") street cries!

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Muse2 - pre-announcement, call for ideas


> Muse2 is now in the final stages [...]
> So I am deciding what should be free and what should need paying for.
>
> The following are in the plan:
>   Reading ABC and Printing it are free.
>   30 days free trial with all functions enabled
>   Saving files, playing files - you pay for.

>From the viewpoint of what I want to include bundled with my CD-ROM:
the idea would be to provide the user with (1) something useful they
can't do without the ABC source and (2) some idea of what they might
be able to do if they paid.  Given my GIFs and sound files, they can
already print and play music without going near ABC, let alone Muse's
native features, so whether you include printing doesn't matter.

What I *would* like is the ability to display on-screen and play back
tunes after being manipulated by Muse, in particular after transposing
them (for singers whose voices don't fit the keys I've provided).  If
people want to save the transpositions, they can pay.

===  ===


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] Goodbye

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Sorry - I guess I omitted an apostrophe in the quote.  Just my bad grammar.
Actually I don't know how to count Gods, so I don't even know what it means
for there to be one or more than one.
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Forgeot Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:44 PM
Subject: [abcusers] Goodbye


Frank, I'm so sorry you can't maintain Musicaviva any longer...
It was a good place on the web.

Is there a hope it will come back again ?
Is it a money problem (cost of servers...) ? If so it's a real
pity then. Can't you move to a free account ?

I've seen also you speak about a job problem. I'm not good a
saying things in such cases so I'll keep quiet then.

about
>"always remember that some of Gods greatest gifts come in the
form of
>unanswered prayers".

Given the place you live, in the northern part of the world, I
think the most helpfull and trustfull one would be SKADI !

Stå på ! Vær ikke sur.

___
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
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] Goodbye

[Laurie (ukonline)]

"...So please respect my right to be grumpy, anti-social, selfish and
bitter."

Yep.  All the best anyway. 

Once at a crisis point in my life I got an email from an Indian friend who
said "always remember that some of Gods greatest gifts come in the form of
unanswered prayers".

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Muse2 for Linux? (was: pre-announcement)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Alas, no still Win32 only - (and that has taken me till 1am most nights,
maybe this is what these new drug developments like provigil are for...?)

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Rick Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 11:52 AM
Subject: [abcusers] Muse2 for Linux? (was: pre-announcement)


Will Muse2 be runnable under Linux?  With sound?

I'm one of those rare folk who like to run Linux but who is also
willing to *pay* for good software.  Paying my own bills that
way probably counts as a bias.  ;-)

So I'm wondering whether I'll be able to get Muse2 for Linux,
and whether paying *once* will be enough.  Or maybe it'll run
under the Windows emulator ("wine")?

-Rick
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] repeats and bar numbers

[Laurie (ukonline)]

No idea what iabc does but what Muse2 does (trying to get it out the door
this week) is that the bars are numbered:

|:  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |1  8  :|  8  |  9  |  10 etc.

You could call them 8a and 8b I guess,  and when unrolled they'd become sort
of

|:  1&9  |  2&10  |  ... |  7&15  |1  8  :|  16  | 17  |  18 etc.

In Muse2 the bar numbers are just so that you can find your way around some
piece like say a chorus of the Messiah (which incidentally repeats endlessly
but never quite the same so has no repeat marks) so that you can say "bar
34" and someone else knows where you mean.  It's convenient to have the
program do the counting for you.  "first time bar 8" would be a reasonable
way to do that for a variant repeat.

Of course if someone produces two harmony parts, one of which is written
with repeats and one not then confusion will erupt when one talks about bar
15 second repeat and the other talks about bar 31.  Then there's Mozart's
famous piece that can be played by two musicians, one reading the score
upside down and back to front

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] repeats and bar numbers


Is this incorrect?  They're 2 different bars, if I were reading the music
I'd expect them to have different numbers, if they're numbered at all.

Maybe I'm missing the point?  What you describe is how iabc does it.

> But please when doing 1st and 2nd repeats, it screws up the > bar
numbering.  [1 might be bar 8,
> [2 will be numbered 9.  But I want them both numbered 8 !
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] Multiple Cords for 1 note

[Laurie (ukonline)]

If you really want it spelled out for a player program then you write it
with ties:

"G7"cBAB |1 "C"c2-"F"c2-"C"c4 :|2 "C"c2-"F"c2-"C"c4 |]

You have to decide whether you are writing for a machine or writing for a
human.  (The former is a bit of a mugs game - done far too much of it and
they never say "thank you").

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Frank Nordberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 2:34 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Multiple Cords for 1 note




Jeremy Cowgar wrote:
> I am curious how to enter multiple chords for one note in ABC format.
> Here is a very small sample of my ABC file:
>
> R:4/4
> L:1/8
> "G7"cBAB |1 "C"c8 :|2 "C"c8 |]
>
> Now, what I want is:
>
> "G7"cBAB |1 "C""F""C"c8 :|2 "C""F""C"c8 |]
>
> The c8 is a whole note obviously, but I want to break the whole note
> accompanyment into three chords.
>
> Can that be done?

Well, yes - in a way,
What you do is that you include all the chord symbols for a single note
within one pair of "'s like this:

"G7"cBAB |1 "C F C"c8 :|2 "C F C"c8 |]

Then you can use multiple spaces between the chord symbols to get the
alignement you want.

Crude, but it works.


Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com

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

[abcusers] Muse2 - pre-announcement, call for ideas

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Muse2 is now in the final stages, (about three months late).  I hope to get
it finished this week.
Still to go are some fixes for bugs that I found as I was writing the
on-line Help and the Registration mechanism.
So I am deciding what should be free and what should need paying for.

The following are in the plan:
   Reading ABC and Printing it are free.
   30 days free trial with all functions enabled
   Saving files, playing files - you pay for.

Given that most of Muse is concerned with a GUI that makes it very easy to
create music, that is serious crippling.  If you apply any tweaks to make
ABC print nicely (fix the spacing, the marings etc.) there will be no way to
save those either (and any line beginning %%abc2ps will obviously be
ignored).

The price will be £25 (that's about $40 US), but £10 for those who bought
Muse.

I am open to suggestions.  (However suggestions that imply that there is no
need for me to get paid will not be treated seriously unless they include
practical means of getting the electricity and other bills paid and
obtaining food and clothing without the need for money).

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] abc drum notation and abc2ps

[Laurie (ukonline)]

If it didn't have to be ABC you could use Muse
http://www.musements.co.uk/muse
which has X, diamond, square or ellipse.

However if you then save as ABC that information would not be included in
the file.

Laurie.
- Original Message -
From: "Guido Gonzato" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "abcusers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] abc drum notation and abc2ps


On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Christopher Myers wrote:

> 1) Can I use an "X" for a note head?

no, unless you redefine the PostScript code that draws noteheads. If you
can't do it yourself, I may consider experimenting - but don't hold your
breath.

> 2) Can I put multiple slashes across the stem of a note? (I think that's

no, unless you write an ad-hoc PostScript routine. As above...

> 3) Can I render a grace note without the tie? (That's a 'flam').

yes, using the %%graceslurs 0 command in the ABC source, or the -G 0
switch in the abcm2ps command line.

> I'm sure there are other things too, but those are the biggies the Drum
> Sergeant came up with last night.
>
> Thanks in advance!

that's all right. Ciao,
   Guido =8-)

--
Guido Gonzato, Ph.D.  - 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 8027928 --- 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]Any french from Quebec

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Si vous vous interessez en l'Zchange des tounes en ABC, soit QuZbZcois ou
non, faites le ici!

Vous connaissez le "tune finder" do John Chambers?
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/FindTune.html

Ca peut vous etre utile.

[If you are interested in swapping tunes in ABC, whether quebecois or not,
do it here!
You know JC's tune finder?  that might be useful for you.]

Laurie (qui est Anglais).

- Original Message -
From: "Sauve Phil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers]Any french from Quebec


Is there any french from Quebec on the list ?

Y a t-il des QuZbZcois sur la liste
Si oui, manifestez-vous afin de constituer un groupe d'Zchange de nos tounes

Phil SauvZ


_
MSN Search, le moteur de recherche qui pense comme vous !
http://search.msn.fr/worldwide.asp

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] The > symbol and abc2midi

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Muse has the concept of a "performance" MIDI file or an "exchange" MIDI
file.

The implementation is nothing too special, but I think this concept is the
right way to go.
For instance, in an exchange MIDI file all the notes will be exactly the
lengths that you'd expect from looking at the dots (e.g. if a hornpipe is
notated even and played dotted then the notes in the exchange file are
even).

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Frank Nordberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 5:56 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The > symbol and abc2midi




Phil Taylor wrote:
>
> >You've got BarFly, which can create MIDI itself, so why do you need
> >to bother with abc2midi?
>
> BarFly creates midi by first making a QT movie, then using Quicktime to
> convert that to midi.  Since Quicktime has no notion of key, time
signature
> or even what length of notated note corresponds to a given duration, the
> resulting midi causes untold pain to music notation programs, although it
> plays beautifully.

That's right. BarFly makes some of the best automatically created midi
files there are for playback, but they're completely useless for
conversion purposes.

>
> Something else I'm going to fix soon...

Great, as long as you remember not to throw the baby out with the bathwater!


Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
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

[abcusers] Duplicate removal from search engine

[Laurie (ukonline)]

| Is there any feasable way to avoid duplicates? I often seem to get the
same
| version of a tune within search results.  I guessing but do people lift
abc
| from one site and post it to another?

Is it feasible to create a "hash code" or "signature" for each tune?
Length is a start, but one would like to ignore some obvious ways that
things can get damaged.  So as a start - how about some of these:
1. Note if there are or are not any chords (one bit)
2. Note if there are any things other than notes present e.g.
!pralltriller!, ~, etc. (one more bit).
3. Throw away all chords, all headers and white space, (space, \t, \n, \r)
trailing ! or \ and all other annotations like the stuff in category 2
above.  Hash what's left - something like a code in the range 1..99 would do
fine.  Reducing duplicates to 1% would be acceptable.
4. Likewise hash the chords - the reserved hash value 0 meaning "there
aren't any chords".
5. As above but transposed to standard key...

So the final result is an N-part code made from some of the above (whatever
is easy to code up) such as C09-T76-H16 meaning "It does have chords and the
chords hash to 09, the tune hashes to 76 and the other stuff, headers etc.
hashes to code 16".   Another tune with (say) C00-T76-H16 is very likely to
be a copy of exactly the same tune but with no chords.

What do you think?  As a user of the tune finder (which I am!!) I think it
would make a lot of difference.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Four-stringed banjos (was: Music Notation)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Frank wrote "... I bought ... a ... banjo tears ago..."

Wonderful!!
I know that t and y are keyboard neighbours but I like to imagine it was a
Freudian slip.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Over the rainbow

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> Curious. Did these work in the abc software you put them
> together in? (How's that for a split infinitive?)

Actually that is not a split infinitive.  You don't need to really bother
about them though.  Some authorities on English (e.g. Fowler) say that
people make fools of themselves trying to not split them and allowing them
to just be split is fine.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

>From: "Buddha Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> How would [d6]2[z2B2G2][z2B2G2] work for "first listed note = melody
note"?

First of all, with any reasonably complex language it's always possible to
write things that are syntactically OK but which are pure colourless green
nonsense.  So just because you can write it doesn't mean it makes any sense.

In this case it sort of does and (to me) looks obvious.  The melody is [d6]2
x2 x2 which will sound exactly like just d6.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] mail-archive.com, the spammer's friend

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> I apparently am now on my way to earning a PhD in 8 months. Cool! :-)

8 months is far too long for a PhD!  I've had many offers of "instant" ones.
I'm hanging out for a D Phil.

Meanwhile I shall making a fortune stuffing envelopes and taking part in
"100% legal" pyramid selling schemes, cancelling all my debts on-line while
I watch, and receiving (USA!) government grants that I never need to repay.
I was going to spend some of it on "Over 250 MILLION Email Addresses for
Sale from US$2 up" or perhaps "14.5 MILLION OPT-IN EMAIL ADDRESSES", but
they all turned out to be aliases for John Chambers.

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

OK.  If you say so, then it isn't weird.  "First note is the one to match
the words to" sounds possible, but we need to understand what this might
mean.

X:0
T:Three blind mice
L:1/8
M:4/4
K:Gmaj
Q:1/4=240
[B4 d]fed [A4c]edc | [G8 B/]c/B/c/ B/c/B/c/ B4 ||
w:Three blind mice

My understanding is that "Three" would matches "B4" and therefore "fed"
would get by-passed as we count up to 4.  Then "blind" would match "A4" so
"edc" are by-passed then "mice" matches "G8" and the 8 count takes us all
the way to the end.  Is that what people had in mind?

Trying to match words to
[B4g3]f3A4
would be more peculiar because B4 takes us to part way through the f3, so
presumably it's too late for that, so the next word matches A4.  So in that
case the melody line would be B4 z2 A4 but the "z2" is implicit and is
therefore probably worth a warning message.

Laurie.
- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 8:22 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] suggestions for [A4A2] notation


Laurie wrote:
| Using w: together with a line in which there are written-out chords with
| different durations of notes starting simultaneously seems pretty weird to
| me.  (But I suppose one man's weird is often another's normal).  However
if
| it is allowed then I have to go with Toni.  That meshes with John's Rules
| 1..3 which talk about a "melody note".

So why would vocal music be any different than non-vocal in
this regard?

I'd think that a lot of choral music (with two voices on  a
staff)  would be easier to write out using bracketed chords
than as multiple voices. The main problem is the occasional
need  to  have  the  two  voices  on  a staff do a slightly
different rhythm. Under current rules, if this happens even
once,  you  have to write them out as separate voices.  But
suppose we could use something like:
   ...  | [A2A3] B[cG] | [d4F4] |]

This is much easier to read and type  than  the  equivalent
two V parts, and you don't have to have software that knows
how to merge voices on a line.

How you'd write the w: lines isn't intuitively obvious, but
this is a cliche that is handled in a lot of printed choral
music.  We could look at how words are  written  in  a  few
hymnals, and handle it the same way.

Let's see; I know I have a copy of Bach's  chorales  around
the house somewhere ...


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] suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Using w: together with a line in which there are written-out chords with
different durations of notes starting simultaneously seems pretty weird to
me.  (But I suppose one man's weird is often another's normal).  However if
it is allowed then I have to go with Toni.  That meshes with John's Rules
1..3 which talk about a "melody note".

L.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

How is that supposed to look and sound?
Muse makes it look and sound funny.

There is a slur mark on every note, caused by those () did you mean []?
And they are funny slurs because they just perch on one note rather than
combining several (because the other thing in the slur is invisible).

It plays sounding (roughly) like A2 B2 z c2 d2 z which would mean that I had
x and y back to front (neither are visible but I'm treating y as a real rest
and x just for spacing).  Should I be fixing this??

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation


> something else that's common in piano and
> guitar music:  a "hanging" tie to the right of a note that means "Let
> this note sound" for an unspecified time.  There's no way that I know
> to say this in abc at present. It's yet another way that keyboard and
> guitar music is the worst case for music notation.

Using BarFly's invisible rests you can do this:

X:1
T:test
M:none
K:C
(A2x) (B2y) (c2x) (d2y)||

x is played as a rest but not printed, y is purely there to occupy some
horizontal space in the staff notation (i.e. it's really a hack to get
round problems occasionally created by BarFly's note spacing algorithms,
but probably all staff-notation generators will need such a hack at
times, albeit no two in the same places).  Which you'd want depends on
the context.




-
Jack Campin  *   11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU,
Scotland
tel 0131 660 4760  *  fax 0870 055 4975  *
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/
food intolerance data & recipes, freeware Mac logic fonts, and Scottish
music


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

[abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

[shrug] Well he asked for examples...

- Original Message - 
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I can't be bothered to argue the minutiae...

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

[Nothing quoted here]

Well, Bryan, if I'd quoted the whole damn thread it would have made the post
kinda long!!

I left out Wil's comment because he was talking about the melody note and
I'd already said that I have some sympathy with the notion that the melody
note goes first.  I still do.  I don't have any good idea as to how I could
implement that in Muse because Muse doesn't have a notion of "the melody
note".  If you *do* go for "melody note first" then you cannot also go for
"first note determines length" because you may need a way of making the next
thing happen before the melody note has finished.  So that brings us back to
"shortest prevails" or "explicit length".

I left out Phil's because it seemed to me that Phil's main point was that
this was in any case a pretty rare thing and not really worth spending that
much time and energy on.  He'll soon put me right if I'm misrepresenting
him.

You say "I would have thought that it was self evident that the [...]
construct cannot cope with the same level of complexity as separate voices."

Well it may be evident to itself, but not to me.  I can see how separate
voices can let you do things like have different timbres, volumes, attack
etc. associated with them, and let the writer "explain the structure of the
music", but beyond that I don't see it.

I said
>The printed piano music that I have seen seems to reply on "shortest
>prevails" (it often also uses beams and other layout clues to connect up
>notes into voices but when these fail it falls back on "shortest wins").
and you asked
"Would you care to produce an example to demonstrate the point?"

OK - here we go - sorry it's so long:

I haven't got a scanner here, so I can't just add a .GIF or few.  Sorry.

Piano accompaniment of Messiah, "And the glory of the Lord" bar 19, right
hand has
tails down: C3 EDC and also
z2 z2 A where the A has tail up.
The two rests are printed right at the top of the staff, so the visual
layout says "there are two voices here - one of them comes in after z4".
The two voices are visually separated and you have to use the layout clues
to make the bar add up.  If you were to just read along horizontally you'd
get [C3z2] [z2] [E] [z2D] [C] and that won't add up to less than seven
whichever rule you use.   If you just wanted the notes you could have C3
E[DA2]C.

Flipping through the pages I see a note printed with both a tail up and a
tail down.  Now on a piano you can't do much about playing both tails, but
they are saying "there are actually two different instruments in the
orchestra that you are simulating and they converge here" (whether the
pianist wanted to know that is another matter).  I suppose they could thump
it a bit harder.

The piano part for "surely he hath borne our griefs" has so many notes in
cross-rhythms that there doesn't seem to be any attempt to show what note
came from where.  The whole "voice" concept has gone, but there are tails
up, tails down, notes with reversed heads and notes displaced slightly
horizontally to fit them in.  The "shortest wins" concept runs through it
all.  For instance just after the choir has finished bar 25 (one of the
simpler bars) begins
[A2C2z3/4] _d//d/>d/
of course the printed page doesn't distinguish between [A2C2z3/4] or
[z3/4A2C2] or some other version.  I just wrote it down from bottom to top
for no particular reason.  In this case the "melody note" is also the
shortest and is the z3/4 rest.

This is all an attempt to compress the orchestral score into one grand staff
for a rehearsal pianist to play.  It does all fit - the limit is not the
notation but the number of fingers the pianist has.

Bar 14 is a particularly simple bar and (ignoring a tie carried in from bar
13) they have written
[G2d2e2] [=Ace][Gce] [A3/2c3/2e3/2]  [Ace]
(and there are some ties that carry on into the next bar too). but they
wrote the top line (e2 e/e/ e3/2 e) as tails up and the lower lines tails
down even though there was no need to do that on grounds of rhythm.  Their
policy was to give "voice" clues when there was a way to do it and when the
going got tough to give the notes and the rhythm (relying on "shortest
determines length") and let the readers figure out voices if they want.

Guitar music is also full of examples of "shortest note determines next
onset".

All this is just saying what staff notation does.  It doesn't mean ABC has
to be the same.  I just think it's a good idea not to be different unless we
need to.

"Shortest determines length" works because you can always add a rest to
delay things, but we don't have negative rests to make things happen sooner.
e.g. [G4B]zcd (melody is Bzcd)
"Melody note first" pretty much demands "shortest determines length" (or
else some new mechanism such as numbers after the close bracket) because the
melody note may be longer than the accompaniment.
"First note determines length" will also work because again you can always
use a rest.  e.g.
[z3/4A2C2] _d//d/>d/ for the bar I quoted from The M

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Bryan wrote "I know you've been away Laurie but this has been discussed at
some length for
over a week now.  A variety of people have given their reasons and examples.
Perhaps if you would care to read the whole thread you could come up with
specific reasons why you disagree and why you think "shortest determines
length" is better."

I did read the whole thread.  I saw suggestions for
1. "highest note prevails" - but this is broken and was abandoned.

2. "first note prevails" with Jack Campin immediately saying " but the
semantics I'd need in every instance where I've wanted it would be that the
*shortest* note counts".

3. "shortest prevails"  The Rapunsel example from Eric Forgeot seemed to
require this

4. None of these (Phil: "Using unequal notes in chords just leads to too
many ambiguities").

A reply from Bryan saying "Noteworthy Composer does it..." but not saying
what rule Noteworthy uses.  Care to tell us?  What rule does Noteworthy
Composer use to determine when the next note starts after a mixed chord?

John Chambers voted for "first-note prevails"

Henrik voted for "shortest prevails" and gave an example of a fiddle tune
(Målargubbens brudpolska) which requires "shortest prevails".

Toni Schilling suggested a length on the end [c4e]2 which seems to have
caused confusion as some people thought that "ought" to mean c8e2.

Bryan said 'the default behaviour without a following number would need to
be the "first-listed note" but did not explain his reasoning - seems to me
that "shortest prevails" works best.

AbcMus implements "shortest prevails"

Jack Campin floated "absorptive " ties.

Bryan said "I think it needs to be recognised that the [...] construct isn't
going to cover all possibilities.  Anything more complex will need separate
voices, possibly combined on one staff." but did not produce any counter
example to demonstrate the point.

John Chambers said "There is a lot of abc that would give strange results
from the shortest-note rule.".

and at that point I got back from Sidmouth and joined in.

There have been two examples given (Rapunsel and Målargubbens brudpolska)
both of which were "shortest prevails".  The most powerful argument for
"first prevails" is John's "there's a lot of ABC that needs it".  Some idea
of just how much would help.  It seems to me that 99% or ABC falls into the
two categories of "no written-out chords at all" or "all notes in a chord
are the same length".

The printed piano music that I have seen seems to reply on "shortest
prevails" (it often also uses beams and other layout clues to connect up
notes into voices but when these fail it falls back on "shortest wins").  To
do something different in ABC is liable to cause confusion.  Although it is
true that ABC is a language in its own right, it's liable to cause confusion
when it is needlessly different from staff notation.

I'm still in favour of "shortest".

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Muse as released does *not* use the "shortest note wins" rule.  In fact it's
pretty restrictive which can make it a pain for keyboard users.  At the
moment I'm doing a major rewrite (called Muse2) which is aimed at
1. Choral singers (better control over playback - done)
2. Keyboard players (live Midi in and all this polyphony stuff)
3. Singer songwriters (better lyrics stuff)

plus a host of smaller things.  In fixing the restrictions on within-staff,
within-voice polyphony - and in particular in trying to type in various
keyboard parts (The Messiah being the biggest) I found that the rule that
seemed to work was "shortest note wins".  So that is the rule used within
the body of Muse2.  I chose it because it seemed to work.  The worst that
can happen is that you have to pad out one of the unnamed "voices" with a
rest.  i.e. [D4G]zFE D4.

I can tolerate a different rule for ABC input and output from that within
the body of Muse2.  Output is easy I could just sort the chords to be
shortest-first.  Input is a little trickier, I'd have to invent that z.

But I'm not particularly convinced that it's a good idea.  I do have some
sympathy with the "first note is the melody" idea - and we can't have both.

I had a few complaints (actually very few) about the severe restriction in
Muse (Muse-1 that is).  It insisted that all notes within a chord be the
same length and required that you either essentially ignored when the notes
ended (as apparently Bach did because his prelude No.1 is written out as all
quavers but he used to hold all the notes down when he played it) or else
write it all out with ties (which can look pretty bad on the page).

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Is it legal abc to have a rest in a chord?

For instance:

X:0
T:Example
L:1/8
M:4/2
K:G
[zG8 B8 d8]gfe dcBA G8

Failing that we really do need the number on the end like

X:1
T:Example
L:1/8
M:4/2
K:G
[G8 B8 d8]1gfe dcBA G8

Note that one might need single note "chords" with a length.
This leads to interesting things (Bach's prelude no.1 comes to mind) like

X:2
T:Example
L:1/8
M:4/2
K:G
[C,8]1[C7]1[E6]1[G5]1 [c4]1[e3]1[g2]1c

Can someone explain why "first note determines length" is better than
"shortest determines length".  A counter example that doesn;t work the other
way would be nice, especially if it were not contrived.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Laurie:
I've been transcribing choruses of The Messiah.
Phil:
If you're doing something that complicated you have to be using multiple
voices anyway...to represent the two hands unambiguously.

Well Muse has a serious problem in using multiple voices for a piano part.
(I would guess Bryan's Noteworthy to ABC converter would have the same
problem).  The problem is "how do you decide what counts as a voice?"  This
is from near the end of "His Yoke is easy and his Burthen is light".  I've
simplified it a tiny bit - it's really in 4/4 and the [c4 e4] tie over into
the next bar.

X:0
T:Example
L:1/8
M:None
K:Bflat%(no mode given)%
% shortest note in chord dictates start of next
[F2 B2 d/]e/f [_A2 B2 f4] [G3 B2] [c4 e4] FE

There is no way that Muse could reasonably figure out what is a voice.
There is actually a bit of the soprano line, slightly distorted, the
contralto line running down through it a few odd notes from the orchestra
and a couple of notes an octave above the tenors, but who cares?  The line
is intended to give enough of a sketch of what's going on for a chorus to
practice against before they start shelling out their hard-earned on an
expensive orchestra.

Also, by the way, I have little interest in the fact that the average
pianist has just under two hands or which notes are to be played with which,
though others might.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I've been transcribing choruses of The Messiah.  The voices are of course
monophonic, but piano accompaniments have all sorts of nasties.  I have
found that shortest note determines when next note starts works well.  You
can always add a rest or two if that's not what you wanted.

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: "Phil Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation


Bryan Creer wrote:

>Henrik Norbeck wrote -
>
>>The alternatives "highest note" and "first-listed note" will cause
>>problems, because they make it impossible to have chords with
>>different note lengths, which breaks a lot of fiddle music, see
>>example below.
>
>Obviously "highest note" wouldn't work for your example (Abacus makes a
mess
>of it) but I don't see why "first-listed note" couldn't work.  Two of your
>mixed length chords are already arranged that way and [d8D7] could be
>rewritten [D7d8].  Using "first-listed note" seems to be the only method
that
>makes no assumptions about the music.  None of the assumptions that the
>shortest, longest or highest note is the melody note is necessarily true.

I'm inclined to agree with Bryan here.  I haven't paid much attention to
this previously (it's not common in abc tunes, and I've never wanted to
do it in any of my own transcriptions).  Using the first-listed note is
certainly the most flexible rule, and leaves the decision up to the
transcriber.

Now that I've come to look at what BarFly actually does with unequal
chords I find that I've been quite inconsistent.  While the player does
what I said previously (takes the longest note as the length of the chord),
if you have an unequal chord in one voice of a multi-voice abc, the notes
get aligned using the length of the first-listed note.  Maybe I'll change
the player to match that.

Henrik wrote:

>X:1
>T:Målargubbens brudpolska

That's one hell of an abc tune!  I think I'll add that to my file
of test tunes for torturing programs with.

BarFly doesn't like the tie between non-contiguous notes (or rather,
it doesn't recognise the notes as being contiguous), but if that is
removed it displays OK.  What it plays is not correct.  Does abcMus
play it correctly?

Phil Taylor


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] re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Muse2 (out shortly) takes the attitude that the shortest note in a chord
controls the onset of the next thing.
If the longest note would extend over a bar then that's a minor error that
the user can use the GUI to correct.

Given a whole bunch of different durations it first does tails up at the top
and tails down at the bottom (with any semibrieves conveniently giving yet a
third "direction" for tails).  If that isn't enough then it offsets lower
notes to the right a little.  If the chord is sorted into ascending order of
pitch then notes which are adjacent and of the same length are always
combined onto one stem (or lack of stem).

Then you have fun with the beaming.  Given the possibility of a tails up and
a tails down beam simultaneously, a single binary indication "beam me" or
"don't beam me" isn't enough.  So it ignores spaces in the ABC and sorts out
the beaming ab initio.

Laurie


- Original Message -
From: "Forgeot Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 12:57 PM
Subject: [abcusers] re : suggestions for [A4A2] notation


Bryan Creer :
>I've gone for highest note prevails in the counting of the times
so you
>can do things like -
>
>X:1
>T:The Cotillion
>C:Trad (Bosham Band)
>M:4/4
>L:1/8
>K:G
>[G4D4][d4B,4]|[B2D4]AB [G2B,4]AB|[c2E4]B2[A2D4]G2|[FD4]GAF
[D3A,3]D|
>


I've seen that Skink happily supports this notation too. (and
multiple undo, I've just noticed that)
I hope more and more programs will be able to handle this, and
maybe the standard could allow it too.

>> Perhaps it should be by length of the first note in the chord.

Jack Campin  said :
>This is a very good idea, but the semantics I'd need in every
instance
>where I've wanted it would be that the *shortest* note counts.
This is
>more reliable than hoping you don't get pedal notes above the
melody.

I've thought to that too, in fact I find it logical to use a tie
before a new barline instead of having notation like that :

cd[C4e2]d2[c2A,4]  | [A,2d]e[B,4f2]e2[d2G,4] etc.

Here is an example : (I've just realized that my notation is
incorrect, I should have begun with
cd | [C4e2] etc. to avoid the ties and to be on the correct strong
beat. This tune was one of the first I've transcribed.
Nevertheless it's just an example to illustrate the idea of this
[A4A2] notation)

X:4
T:Rapunsel
C:Kari Rueslåtten
D:Demo Recordings
O:Norge
Z:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://anamnese.fr.st
M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=100
K:Eb
cd[C4e2]d2[c2A,2-]  | [A,2d]e[B,4f2]e2[d2G,2-] |\
[G,2c]d[C4e2]d2[A,2c2]  | [G,2=B]c [G,2B2][C4c4]   | "/.../"

In an other tunes, I was really stuck because I had already 3
voices, it was a really long tune, and I didn't want to had a 4th
voice full of rests just to add some extra notes in the last
mesure, so I think there is a real need for such a notation...
In guitar it's often there is a pedal note (or a chord) whereas
there is a melody line above, and to have only a voice is more
logical in a certain way.



___
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
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

[abcusers] Phrygian major

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Here is another phrygian mode flamenco piece.  I transcribed this from the
playing of Philip John Lee.
The rhythm is very approximate and it doesn;t fit ABC at all well.  The
tonic is obviously F# when you hear it played (actually he plays it with a
capo on fret 2 so you could call that G#) and flamenco musicians think of it
as being in the phrygian mode, however you get so many =c in it that I guess
you could make out a case for Locrian.
It left me as one bar per line (but it really is in free time and some of
the bars are very long and som every short).

Some things are almost impossible to transcribe in ABC.  In particular

Argegiated chords where the fingers play one string each in succession bass
to treble and then each finger rakes back down (treble to bass - physically
towards the ceiling) over all the strings all overlapping with each other.
Long continuous left hand rolls with similar arpeggiated chords added in as
it goes.
Roughly speaking, the better it sounds on the guitar, the sillier it sounds
coming out of the computer.

X:0
T:Tarantas
L:1/8
M:None
K:F#phr
[K: transpose=-12]F\
%rubato, in fact very rubato
F A4 |\
dc G |\
A,/A/G/B/ A,/A/G/B/ A,/A/G/B/ [A,4 A4] :|\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4 B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4 F4 |\
G/4A/4B/4 B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4 F4 |\
G/4A/4B/4 B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4F/4E/4D/4 E/4F/4G/4A/4 B/4A/4G/4F/4 E/4D/4E/4F/4
E/4D/4C/4B,/4 A,/4B,/4C/4D/4 E/4F/4G/4A/4 B/4 B4 |\
B/ A/ G/ F G =F G ^F G G G ^F G =F G F,2 C2 D2 =F2 G/4B/4 e/4B/4G/4^F/4 C/4
F,4 |: F,/ C/ D/ =F/ ^F/ G/ ^A/ B/ c/ B/ ^A/ G/ ^F/ G/ ^A/ G/ ^F/ G/ ^F/ G/
^F/ G/ ^F/ G/ =F4 |\
G,/A,/B,/C/ D/C/D/C/ D/C/B,/A,/ C/B,/A,/G,/ F,/C/D/=F/ C/^F/ {e B G ^F C F,
e B G ^F C F, e B G ^F C }F,6 :|\
B,/C/ B,/ A,4 |\
E/F/E/ D2 [A,3/2 D3/2 A3/2 d3/2 f3/2] A,/ G,2 [G,2 B,2 D2 G2 B2 g2] |\
D/ E/ D/ C E [A,2 E2 A2 c2 e2] B,/ C/B,/ A,2 G,2 |\
[G,2 B,2 D2 G2 B2 g2] G,G, F,=F, {=F, =C =F G B e B G =F =C }=F,4 |\
E,/=F,/G,/^F,/ {^F, C F G B [e e] B G F C [e e] B G F C [e e] B G F C }^F,4
|\
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 {e B }F,/4{G }G,/4{F C }F,/4E,/4 F,/4{e
B }G,/4{G F }F,/4{C }E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4{e
B }G,/4{G F }F,/4{e C B G }E,/4 {F C }F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4
F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 F,/4G,/4F,/4E,/4 [F,2 C2 F2 G2 B2 e2] |\
B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4
B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4
B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4{e B }C/4{G e D B }B,/4{G D }A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4
B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4
B,/4C/4B,/4A,/4 [G,4 B,4 D4 G4 d4] |\
[F,2 A,2 D2 A2 =c2] |\
B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4
B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4 B/4=c/4d/4=c/4
B=c =F,/ |\
=c[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/] [D/A/=c/]d/[D/A/][A/ d/ e/] [=ce][D/A/][A/ =c/ e/]
[D/A/=c/e/]g/[D/A/][A/ =c/ g/] [D/A/=c/g/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/]
[D/A/=c/f/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/] |: [D/A/=c/g/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/]
[D/A/=c/f/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/] [D/A/=c/g/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/]
[D/A/=c/f/]e/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/] [D/A/d/]=c/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/]
[D/A/d/]=c/[D/A/][A/ =c/ e/] :|\
ee B B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/ F4 |:
G/4A/4 B/4 B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4 F4 :|\
G/4A/4B/4 B4 |\
G/4A/4B/4A/4 G/4F/4E/4D/4 E/4F/4G/4A/4 B/4A/4G/4F/4 E/4D/4E/4F/4
E/4D/4C/4B,/4 A,/4B,/4C/4D/4 E/4F/4G/4A/4 B/4 B4 |\
B/ A/ G/ F G =F G ^F G G G ^F G =F G F, C D =F [F,4 C4 ^F4 G4 B4 e4] |


Here it is with the string numbers in.

X:0
T:Tarantas
L:1/8
M:None
K:F#phr
[K: transpose=-12]\
%rubato, in fact very rubato
F;4 F;4 A4;4 |\
d;3c;3 G;4 |\
A,/;5A/;4G/;3B/;2 A,/;5A/;4G/;3B/;2 A,/;5A/;4G/;3B/;2 [A,4;5 A4;4] :|\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3
B4;3 |\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3 F4;4 |\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3 B4;2 |\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3 F4;4 |\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3 B4;2 |\
G/4;3A/4;3B/4;3A/4;3 G/4;3F/4;4E/4;4D/4;4 E/4;4F/4;4G/4;3A/4;3
B/4;3A/4;3G/4;3F/4;4 E/4;4D/4;4E/4;4F/4;4 E/4;4D/4;4C/4;5B,/4;5
A,/4;5B,/4;5C/4;5D/4;4 E/4;4F/4;4G/4;3A/4;3 B/4;3 B4;2 |\
B/;3 A/;3 G/;3 F;4 G;3 =F;4 G;3 ^F;4 G;3 G;4 G;3 ^F;4 G;3 =F;4 G;3 F,2;6
C2;5 D2;4 =F2;4 G/4;3B/4;2 e/4;1B/4;2G/4;3^F/4;4 C/4;5 F,4;6 |: F,/;6 C/;5
D/;4 =F/;4 ^F/;4 G/;3 ^A/;3 B/;2 c/;2 B/;2 ^A/;3 G/;3 ^F/;4 G/;3 ^A/;3 G/;3
^F/;4 G/;3 ^F/;4 G/;3 ^F/;4 G/;3 ^F/;4 G/;3 =F4;4 |\
G,/;6A,/;5B,/;5C/;5 D/;4C/;5D/;4C/;5 D/;4C/;5B,/;5A,/;5 C/;5B,/;5A,/;5G,/;6
F,/;6C/;5D/;4=F/;4 C/;5^F/;4 {e;1 B;2 G;3 ^F;4 C;5 F,;6 e;1 B;2 G;3 ^F;4 C;5
F,;6 e;1 B;2 G;3 ^F;4 C;5

Re: [abcusers] Key/Mode algorithm

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I think it was Bryan that wrote
"Whichever you like as long as you specify all the notes unambiguosly."

It has just occurred to me that the notion that the notes are in some way
more fundamental than the mode is actually wrong.  It assumes that the tune
is always played/sung the same way.  That does seem to be more or less true
for songs (the singers I've heard don't seem to change the tunes much) but
is *not* true for instrumental tunes.  The better (folk) musicians that I
know are *always* taking liberties with the tunes and if they wrote the tune
themself then it can change every time.

But there is something that doesn't change.  I've heard it called "the bones
of the tune".  So the real tune is the sum total of all the variations that
the composer would regard as not straying so far as to be a different tune.
(A cloud of points in a high dimensionsal, abstract, tune space if you like
sesquipedalion language).  So what's actually written down is one sample
version (one droplet from the cloud) which is somehow supposed to capture
the essence of all those variations and ambiguities.

The chord structure of the tune gives another stab at capturing it.  That
can have variations too.  (Does John Brown's Body have the interesting B Em
| A7 D7 |  G  ending, or does it just go G G | D7 D7 | G) so there's another
set of dimensions to the cloud.

The tonic and mode are yet another way of describing the tune.  These too
can be played about with (our band plays a minor key version of Black Jack),
but to my mind they are usually a little more stable (we call it "White
Jill" - so we sort of acknowledge that it's become a new tune).

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] ABC software in reference libraries

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Actually Muse isn;t locked up quite that badly - it will turn ABC into
tadpoles on the screen.  What it won't do is play or print.  
Maybe I should make Muse2 so that it will *play* ABC for free.
(It's a one-line change so I may be able to find the time).
L.


- Original Message -
From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 11:01 PM
Subject: [abcusers] ABC software in reference libraries


I gave a copy of my CD-ROM to the National Library of Scotland.

They said, great, can we have six of them please?  This because
they're part of the legal-deposit system in the UK, including
others like the Mitchell, the Bodleian and the British Library.

They also gave me the darnedest form, intended to deal with deposits
of non-print media, which covered a whole lot of questions I hadn't
thought about at all.  Electronic media are not formally covered by
legal deposit, it's all voluntary contributions; since the whole thing
would have been impossible without the NLS's help, I certainly owe
them this.

One question they asked was what sort of access I'd prefer.  There
are three grades of access: single-user at a workstation, single-user
over their internal network, and open access (any number of users,
maybe offsite).  They suggested the middle one: it means the CD stays
in the stacks rather than in the none-too-gentle hands of J. Random
User - probably means disks are loaded manually by librarians for the
most part, though perhaps they have a carousel or permanent mounting
for popular items.

The harder one was hardware/software requirements.  How long is a piece
of string?  You can read the text of the CD with Lynx.  You can do that
and also look at the scores with the HTML Viewer application on the Mac,
which runs in 1 Mb of memory on System 7.1 (might even work on a Mac
Plus, I'll check that).  Probably on something similarly spartan for DOS
or Unix.  Listening to the MIDI or QuickTime files takes a good bit more
computing power, but it's standard stuff; install IE 5 on any machine
that will let you and you've got something that will basically work.

Which leaves the ABC files.  You don't *need* to look at those to make
sense of the CD, but it helps, particularly as most of the bibliographic
data and documentation of my editorial interventions is in them.  So it
would be nice to have ABC applications on the CD that could be run over
the network.  BarFly can almost do that (needs to sidestep that loopy
pre-X MacOS practice of storing individuals' config data in the System
Folder, which should be write-protected in any sensible public-space
installation), but isn't ideal since there are few Macs in the NLS and
none in easily accessible places.  I don't know what machines the other
legal-deposit libraries offer to the public, but Windows would seem to
be a good bet.  But note, I *can't* expect librarians to install and
configure specialized software.

I'm thinking of making a special reference library edition of the thing,
with software included to do something meaningful with the ABC.  The
retail version won't do; it only has a locked-until-you-pay-up version
of Muse on it which gives you no idea of ABC's potential.

Would software implementors out there be prepared to let me have fully
working versions of their programs to include on these six CDs, set up
so they can run over a network off a CD and assuming no write permissions
at all on client machines?  The libraries guarantee that nobody gets to
download anything, and printing can be limited to whatever I specify, so
nobody's going to get pirated from this.

For Unix, we have a can of worms because of the range of platforms out
there - I don't think you can even expect Intel Linux binaries to work
across two different releases because of hard-coded paths, and trying
to make something multi-platform for all of Linux on Intel and PPC,
FreeBSD on Alphas, Solaris on Sparcs, Darwin etc would be a nightmare.
Perhaps only Java-based solutions like Skink make sense for that.  No
need for any PostScript generators, since nobody's going to be printing
anything, and some other kinds of ABC application are equally irrelevant
to this situation.

I don't recall any precedent for people putting software in libraries
under legal deposit.  This is a kinda sneaky way of doing exactly that.
Gotta be a first time.

===  ===


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] Modes without the maths

[Laurie (ukonline)]

John Chambers wrote "...That "phrygian major" sounds a lot like what the
people to the  south and east of Spain call "hejaz" and klezmer musicians
call "freygish". Phrygian with a raised 3rd ..."

Yes.  In Ephr, the ^G from the E major in the harmony creeps into the tune
now and again.  But for most flamenco pieces there are many more =Gs than
^Gs.  In particular the final Soleares sequence is inevitably something like
a2 g2 fff2 f2 E2
with no ^gs in the melody.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

[abcusers] Phrygian major

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Well there are a few odd pieces that one or two list members have unearthed
that seem to be really the Greek phrygian mode in that they resolve on to a
chord which is a triad starting from the tonic.  e.g. in EPhr that's E G B
or an E minor chord.  They know more than I do.  I don't understand that
stuff, but it seems different from what I know.

Many flamenco pieces (e.g. soleares, tarantas, some bulerias and others too)
are played in a phrygian mode in that the notes of the tune are almost
exclusively in that scale, but they NEVER resolve onto E minor, but always
onto E major.  So the melody uses a G natural (OK, so the odd G sharp creeps
in, but mainly they don't) but the harmony always sharpens it whenever the
tonic chord comes in, and especially the final chord.  So the final cadence
is typically Am, G7, F maj7, E.

Interestingly, classical composers who have been to spain and written a
"Spanish" piece almost never do this.  They get that far and then they feel
it's unfinished and too uncomfortable and so they bolt for the minor by
adding B A G# A or something on to the end of the melody to finish up in A
minor.

I suppose that to illustrate what I mean I need to supply a sample.
The numbers after the semicolons are string numbers and you only have to
look at the first bar with all those fs on the B string to see that they
really do matter.  Things that otherwise look like trills are actually
arpeggios played as a sort of two-string tremolo - and it wanders up the
neck a little later on.  Don't try to play it on a melodion!

You'll need to stitch the lines back together.

X:0
T:To Anne Elizabeth
C:Laurie Griffiths
L:1/8
M:None
K:EPhrj
[K: transpose=-12]^D/;4^d/;2e/;1^d/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2
E,/;6e/;2e/;1e/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 :|\
F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2
G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 |\
F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 E,/;6e/;2e/;1e/;2
E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 |\
F/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2 B/;3f/;2a/;1f/;2 F/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2
G/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2 B/;3f/;2a/;1f/;2 |\
F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 F/;4f/;2e/;1f/;2 E,/;6e/;2e/;1e/;2
E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 |\
D/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 F/;4E/;4D/;4C/;5 B,/;5e/;2e/;1e/;2
C/;5e/;2e/;1e/;2 D/;5C/;5B,/;5A,/;5 |\
^G,/;6e/;2e/;1e/;2 A,/;5e/;2e/;1e/;2 B,/;5A,/;5=G,/;6F,/;6 E,;6e;1 E;4e;1
E/;4e/;2e/;1e/;2 ||\
F/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2 G/;4f/;2a/;1f/;2 =G,3/2;6[f/;2 a/;1] ^F;4G;4 [f;2a;1]G;4
=G,3/2;6[f/;2 a/;1] |\
^F;4G;4 [f;2a;1]G;4 [f;2a;1]=F;4 E,;6 (3^G/;3 B/;2 e/;1 E;4B;2 e2;1 ||\
A,/;5e/;1c/;2A/;3 E/;4A/;3c/;2e/;1 f/;1e/;1d/;2c/;2 G,/;6B/;2G/;3F/;4
B,/;5F/;4G/;3B/;2 c/;2B/;2A/;3G/;3 |\
F,/;6B/;2A/;3F/;4 C/;5F/;4A/;3B/;2 c/;2^c/;2d/;2^d/;2 E,;6e;1 E;4^G;3 B;2e;1
|\
A,/;6a/;1e/;2c/;3 A/;4c/;3e/;2a/;1 b/;1a/;1e/;2c/;3 G,/;6g/;1d/;2B/;3
G/;4B/;3d/;2g/;1 a/;1g/;1d/;2B/;3 |\
F,/;6f/;1c/;2A/;3 F/;4A/;3c/;2f/;1 g/;1f/;1c/;2A/;3 E,/;6e/;1B/;2^G/;3
E/;4^G/;3B/;2e/;1 f/;1^f/;1g/;1^g/;1 |\
(3[A,;6a;1]e;2c;3 (3A;4c;3e;2 (3c';1b;1a;1 (3[G,;6g;1]d;2B;3 (3G;4B;3d;2
(3b;1a;1g;2 |\
(3f;2c;3A;4 (3F;5A;4c;3 (3e;1f;2e;1 E,;6e;1 E;4^G;3 B;2e;1 |\
(3A,;5E;4A;3 (3c;2B;2A;3 (3c;2B;2A;3 (3G,;6B,;5F;4 (3B;2A;3G;3 (3B;2A;3G;3
|\
(3F,;6A,;5F;4 (3B;2A;3G;3 B/;2A/;3G/;3F/;4 E,;6e;1 E;4^G;3 B;2e;1 ||

Oh, all right - here you are without the strings numbers!

X:0
T:To Anne Elizabeth
C:Laurie Griffiths
L:1/8
M:None
K:EPhrj
[K: transpose=-12]^D/^d/e/^d/ E/e/e/e/ F/f/e/f/ E,/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/
:|\
F/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ F/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ |\
F/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ F/f/e/f/ E,/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ |\
F/f/a/f/ G/f/a/f/ B/f/a/f/ F/f/a/f/ G/f/a/f/ B/f/a/f/ |\
F/f/e/f/ G/f/e/f/ F/f/e/f/ E,/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ |\
D/e/e/e/ E/e/e/e/ F/E/D/C/ B,/e/e/e/ C/e/e/e/ D/C/B,/A,/ |\
^G,/e/e/e/ A,/e/e/e/ B,/A,/=G,/F,/ E,e Ee E/e/e/e/ ||\
F/f/a/f/ G/f/a/f/ =G,3/2[f/ a/] ^FG [fa]G =G,3/2[f/ a/] |\
^FG [fa]G [fa]=F E, (3^G/B/e/ EB e2 ||\
A,/e/c/A/ E/A/c/e/ f/e/d/c/ G,/B/G/F/ B,/F/G/B/ c/B/A/G/ |\
F,/B/A/F/ C/F/A/B/ c/^c/d/^d/ E,e E^G Be |\
A,/a/e/c/ A/c/e/a/ b/a/e/c/ G,/g/d/B/ G/B/d/g/ a/g/d/B/ |\
F,/f/c/A/ F/A/c/f/ g/f/c/A/ E,/e/B/^G/ E/^G/B/e/ f/^f/g/^g/ |\
(3[A,a]ec (3Ace (3c'ba (3[G,g]dB (3GBd (3bag |\
(3fcA (3FAc (3efe E,e E^G Be |\
(3A,EA (3cBA (3cBA (3G,B,F (3BAG (3BAG |\
(3F,A,F (3BAG B/A/G/F/ E,e E^G Be ||

You must play it in such a way that the notes ring on long after their
strict note value says they should have ended (because that's what guitars
do and it's lunacy to try to notate it other than saying "guitar").  For
anyone who wants to try to play it on a guitar, it's tuned in standard
EADGBE and has enough stretches and awkwardnesses that it's not for
beginners.

Incidentally I hope nobody pours this into Muse and back out again as it has
unearthed some bugs in Muse ABC output (one of which is quite embarrassing).

I've written is as essentially 6/8 but it really should be thought of as
12/8 with a stress pattern that goes
| - - * - - * - * - * - - |
(so that

[abcusers] Modes without the maths

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Tonic is important because it says where the tune is going.

Mode is important because it says how the tune is going to get there.

If a tune is in an open key (no white notes on the harpsichord) then in the
major (or "Ionian") mode the obvious harmony is the "three chord trick" C,
G7 and F.  The final sequence will be G7 => C

If it's in D dorian then you will hear Dm, C and very occasionally either G
or Bm.  the final sequence will be C => Dm

If it's in E phrygian and is a flamenco piece (perhaps "phrygian major")
you'll hear a characteristic ending sequence of "Am" => G7 => Fmaj7 => E

If it's in the minor phrygian then I haven't a clue and the same applies to
F lydian.

If it's in Gmix then you'll hear mainly G and F (Old Joe Clark) and the odd
C, finishing with F => G.

In A aeolian you'll hear Am, C, and maybe a G or F, probably ends G=>Am but
I'm not so sure about this one.

If it's in A minor then you'll hear Am, E or E7, and the odd G, C or F,
finishing E7=>Am

For B locrian I have no idea.

As Robert Bley-Vroman wrote, it tells you what to shout to the guitarist.
e.g. "It's one of them Em-D tunes.".

Contrast this with my "Concise dictionary of music" which says "By the end
of 17th cent. exclusive use of 2 modern modes, major and minor was
established".  (Clearly Old Joe Clark and Drowsy Maggie are simply wrong and
need to be re-written properly).

To summarise it so you can see it at a glance, here it is as a table.  The
final sequence is the first two chords in reverse order e.g. G7=>C.

K:Cmaj   CG7 F
K:Ddor   Dm   E (G,  Bm)
K:Ephr   EFmaj7 G7   Am
K:Gmix   GF (C)
K:Aaeo   Am   C (F   G)
K:Am Am   E7(G   C   F)

and in case you think that they look different just because they all have
different tonics, here it is transposed to the same tonic:

K:Cmaj   CG7 F
K:Cdor   Cm   Bb (F,  Am)
K:Cphr   CDbmaj7 Eb7  Fm
K:Cmix   CBb (F)
K:Caeo   Cm   Eb (Ab   Bb)
K:Cm Cm   G7 (Bb   Eb   Ab)

So, to repeat, the tonic tells you where the tune is going and the mode
tells you how it's going to get there - the notes that are likely to turn up
in the melody, the likely harmony and the likely harmony sequence.  And you
don't need any maths, you just need an ear for the music.  It's pretty clear
that some classically trained musicians have had that trained out of them.
(Is it like Japanese not hearing the difference between an English L and an
R?).

John Chambers is of course correct, there are a lot more modes than this and
some of them (Lydian, Phrygian minor and Locrian) are so rare that they
might just as well have been treated as odd-balls and written out with
accidentals.  But to refer to a D-dor tune as D minor tells the guitarist to
listen for C#-natural leading notes and the chance to play A7 chords.

Bryan Creer had written:
"...the "ignorant peasants" were perfectly capable of singing their songs
without knowing anything about modes..."

That of course is stretching the phrase "knowing anything about" to breaking
point.  They knew the scales and they knew how to harmonise them.  They just
didn't know the Greek names.  Shakespeare's Theorem applies: "A mode by any
other name will sound as sweet."

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

[abcusers] Sidmouth

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Anyone going to Sidmouth this year?

One of the better moments of last year was when I was introduced to Richard
Robinson last year.  If we had not happened to have a mutual friend in
Carole Turner we would never have met or if we had, never have recognised
each other.  (By the way he is an impressive clarinet player.  When I tried
playing a weird hornpipe that modulated off into a B major chord he was
improvinsing harmonies apparently unfazed by playing in seven sharps).

Laurie



To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Key/Mode algorithm

[Laurie (ukonline)]

For what it's worth I have implemented this in Muse2 (which I do hope to get
out the door soon).
I've used Phil's numbers exactly.

I note that you don't distinguish between Aeolian and minor - whereas I'd
expect a piece in A minor to attract some E7 harmonies with  ^g leading
notes - and indeed even ^f g^ double leading notes.

As the score for ^g is 0.00 and the score for ^f is very small I presume you
indeed did not have any such minor pieces in the sample set.

It goes nicely with an "invent some guitar chords" algorithm.  I took the
attitude that the user could enter "?" as a guitar chord and Muse2 would, on
request, try to replace them with something sensible.  The chord chosen is
given a score for
*  matching the melody over the period until the next chord (the first
melodic note is given extra weight - maybe eventually it should use stress
patterns)
* matching the key signature (i.e. not having out-of-key notes in it)
* matching the chord before and the chord after (so that G=>A7=>D scores
higher than G=>G#=>D)
* random
and you can set weights for deciding how important any of these are.  The
weights can be negative, so if you really like dissonant, out-of-key chords
in a jarring sequence you can have it.

The chord before and the chord after could be further "?"s so in that case
it looks for the "best" overall chord sequence.
There is of course no such thing as "best", but anyway that's how it scores
them.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re: keys & modes (was: tune finder)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I have to agree with Henrik.

My experience is that many musicians (including some quite good ones who
really ought to know better) do one of two things.  They either say an Edor
tune is in D (which is silly as it spends it's time flirting briefly with D
and then homing back to E just as a piece in D will flirt with the notes in
G and A7 chords and then home back to D), or else they say it's in E minor
which is perhaps closer to the truth, but a piece in Em will typically find
its way home via the note ^D and the chord B7, wheras a dorian tune will use
D and arrive home with the "non-classical" chord pattern D Em.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Henrik Norbeck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
...
This is a confusion of key and mode. If, as in the original example,
we have K:D %Edorian we don't have the right key! The right key is
*not* D, it is "two sharps" or "f# c#" to be more precise.
D means that the final (or tonal centre or whatever you want to call
it) of the tune is the note D and the mode is ionian or major (which
is the most common mode in western European music and
therefore the default mode).
They actually teach you wrong at school...


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] a request to talented programmers

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Do you explicitly require that it plays music that is in NWC format?
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Guido Gonzato" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "ABC users ML" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 10:22 AM
Subject: [abcusers] a request to talented programmers


hello,

Windows users have this little gem called NoteWorthy Player
(http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/player/), a brilliant MIDI player that
also shows the music notation. AFAIK, such a tool is not available to Linux
users, and an equivalent Windows program which is open source doesn't exist
either.

Isn't there a talented programmer who would like to write a program like
this? Needless to say, it should also be able to save the music in ABC
format.

Ciao,
 Guido =8-)

--
Guido Gonzato, Ph.D.  - 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 8027928 --- 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] The (illegal) sounds of silence

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I'm incredibly mortified.  I apologise for my ignorance.  Are all three
movements the same length?  Do they add up to 4'33 or is that the length of
each?

This is a real challenge for a player program.  I presume that an authentic
computer performance must come up with some sort of opening noise and make
various beeps and burps as it opens various windows before each movement and
then more animated noises as it closes things down at the end.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The (illegal) sounds of silence


>X:814
>T:4'11"
>C:John Cage
>O:USA
>%http://www.musicaviva.com/abc/tunes/cage-john/4-11.abc
>%Posted Aug 9th 1999 at abcusers by Laurie Griffiths in an attempt to
>%introduce some serious music to the list. Proofread by Phil Taylor
>M:none
>Q:1/8=60
>K:Abm
>z251|]

Wrong, all wrong.  Not only is it 4' 33", but a practical performance
would be a bit longer; there are three movements, with the usual
inter-movement things (tuning up, etc) between them.  You have to use
the P: construct or present it as three separate tunes.

I've only seen it performed once, by the Whistlebinkies during Cage's
visit to Glasgow in 1991.  They did all the usual hoisting fiddle onto
shoulders, tucking bagpipes in position and getting set with the bodhran
stuff.  If I remember right, they used a different placement of the
players round the hall for each movement.

It's about the right length to enter in a fiddle competition as a
march, strathspey and reel set.

===  ===


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] The (illegal) sounds of silence

[Laurie (ukonline)]

My recollection was that someone else started it but gave a transcription
which did have silence, but did not have exactly the right length of
silence.  Whether it is 4'11" or 4'13" is clearly incredibly (sic) important
and I do hope I didn't get the wrong one.
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Frank Nordberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The (illegal) sounds of silence




Thomas Bending wrote:
>
> The Musica Viva version is presumably just a quote from the
> complete work...

Don't blame me, I'm just the archivist. It was Laurie who posted the
tune at abcusers - and Phil who did the proofreading.

Here's the tune in question, btw:

X:814
T:4'11"
C:John Cage
O:USA
%http://www.musicaviva.com/abc/tunes/cage-john/4-11.abc
%Posted Aug 9th 1999 at abcusers by Laurie Griffiths in an attempt to
%introduce some serious music to the list. Proofread by Phil Taylor
M:none
Q:1/8=60
K:Abm
z251|]



Cheers
Frank Nordberg


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] Question about rhythm notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

According to Gerou and Lusk in their Essential Dictionary of Music Notation,
"Because of the ease in reading of beams, the use of flags in vocal music -
in relation to the lyric - has become obsolete".  So I guess it's at least
contentious.  (Out of 161 pages they devote 12 whole pages to beams).

I suppose I should add that I can merge two voices into a staff in Muse too,
but I don't think it's normally a clever thing to do.  You finish up with
invisible rests and all sorts.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Question about rhythm notation


> The attitude that I take in Muse is that Muse does beaming automatically,
> so I disregard the beaming information in the ABC.  I can argue both
> sides of this, but the argument for this action is that fundamentally
> ABC is about describing the music, not the printed page.

Beaming is in the standard, though, and for vocal scores it does convey
musical information; you beam notes that go on the same syllable, not
otherwise.


> it seems to me that trying to express beaming in ABC in all but the
> simplest cases is impossible.
> For instance consider even [GB]A and I want the G and A to be beamed
> but the B to be a separate flag.  Or if you think you can solve that
> one (perhaps [B G]A) then how about [BG] [AF] and I want the B to be
> beamed with the A, tails up  and the G with the F, tails down.

You can do those in BarFly by putting the notes with different stem
directions into different voices and telling the program to merge
them.  Usually it works, but you can end up with some rather odd
"voices" that way.  And since there's no way to change the number in
mid-tune, if you need five voices at any point of the tune they have
to be there from beginning to end; this looks weird with some early
music where chords are used only sporadically in a basically monophonic
texture.

I think you could represent any piano score in BarFly using 176 voices;
two voices for each key, one for each stem direction.  Like an ASCII
player piano roll.  You'd need an Apple Cinema Display to edit it.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Intergalactic naming conventions.

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Let's see; Scotland  does  have  its own parliament now, but it doesn't have
its own army or navy, so it must be a dialect (and  an  inferior  one  at
that ;-).

I'd better wait and see what Jack and Phil say - but there seem to me to be
many Scotsmen that consider their variant of English a separate language
(some of Burns poetry can be pretty impenetrable to us English).

[How to tell if someone is Scottish - ask them "are you Scotch?"  If you
survive the encounter, they are not!]

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Ages ago Eric said programs should "... - follow the general convention for
shortcuts ("ctrl + c" for
copy, "ctrl + a" for select all etc.)"

I'm just looking at this in Muse.  The problems is that a clip has a musical
context described in Muse by Clef, Key signature, transpose, capo and
accidentals (and ABC has most of these too and you can argue as to whether
time-signature, tempo etc should be included).  So if you want to cut and
paste from the flute part to the clarinet part, you have to say whether you
want to copy  the musical intent or the text.  Furthermore a snippet that is
copying may alter the context for following notes (for instance it may
include a K:) so that makes about 8 variants according to whether you want
to
* Copy the TEXT (ignoring the original context) or the MUSIC (in effect
transposing the clip temporarily into the key of C with no inherited capo,
transpose or accidentals)
* Paste the TEXT or the MUSIC (in effect transposing the clip by the inverse
of the new context and inserting naturals to undo anything done by the key
signature or accidentals in the new context)
* Ignore the consequences or PRESERVE the context - for instance pasting a
^C into a bar in K:G where there is another C later in the bar - should that
new C now become =C?

Unfortunately most of these options make sense some of the time.  To copy
the soprano part into the tenor part, I might copy and paste the text and
the text inherits the new context (transposing down by one octave).  To copy
that into the clarinet part I want to paste the *music* and not the text.
Likewise to copy out of the clarinet part into somewhere else.

Should the default perhaps be to copy the music, paste the music and
preserve the context?

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Intergalactic naming conventions.

[Laurie (ukonline)]

... And the English think that English is the language that the English
speak!!
Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Muse

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Actually I have to say that my original intention when producing Muse was to
be able to produce music so that I could read it (I am not the best of
sight-readers so it has to be fairly clear) and someone standing behind me
reading over my shoulder could read it - because that happens in gigs
sometimes).  So when I had achieved that I lost interest in how pretty it
looked.  I have been greatly surprised by the number of people who really
need it to look pretty.  (Hey, guys!  Isn't it the *sound* that matters?)

Well fair enough, Muse2 looks prettier!  I hope it will prove pretty enough.

L.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Anarchy

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Yawn.

Sigh.

Look.  If you think you are the only fellow allowed an opinion then you are
crazy, so I'll presume that you don't think that and you agree that others
can have theirs.  That includes me.  You are for ever (and it has got
boring) quoting people out of context and misquoting people.  Who ever wrote
"I want it my way and no other.".  Nobody, right?  You just made it up,
right?

I am right?  You did just make that up??

Because at the moment I think *you* are the only person on the list who
thinks that way.  I hope to discover that I'm wrong and you don't.

Now if I remember correctly (feel free to dig it up in the archives) my
original quote was (from memory) close to "we like it that way and reading
this thread will reveal who 'we' are".

You always leave that last part off.  What I was saying (yawn) a long time
ago was that this business of modes can be argued both ways, there are two
sides to it and ultimately it comes down to a matter of opinion.  I had (and
still have) a particular opinion, and reading through the thread it was
clear that several others had the same opinion.  Some may like it this way,
some may like it that way.  Me, I like it *this* way.  OK?  It's an opinion?
Am I entitled to it?  YES I AM.

Part of my musical upbringing was flamenco guitar where there are
essentially three modes and about 4 keys.  The keys are E, A, D and C and
the modes are major, minor and Phrygian (OK tarantas is played in F#
phrygian and, with a capo on fret 2 that's G#Phr - that's why I said
"about").  To describe a phrygian piece as either minor or major is a
travesty.  It's not just wrong, it's ludicrous.  You hear classical
composers who write "Spanish" pieces that go Am G7 F E and should stop there
(EPhry) but the poor fellow is clearly in a panic and desperately rushes
back to the thing he knows, and glues a minor ending on.  E7 Am (phew that
was a close one!)  The result is like a Vaughan Williams "folk song".
"Song" yes, "folk", no.

So I grew up thinking modes are important.  Then I came across Irish music
in Dorian and it's obviously a sort of minor but it obviously has its own
character.  Then there are those pieces in G with all the Fs naturals.  And
I could go on.  So MY OPINION which is derived from my growing up is that
modes matter and I don't want to see them go away.  I'd rather see things
notated as tonic+mode or even tonic and a bunch of accidentals than as a
collection of sharps and flats.  It's just my opinion.  But I'm entitled to
it.  That is the way I like it.  That is my opinion.  It is in fact just
that, a matter of opinion.  I've read John Chambers arguments, but I'm still
not convinced.

(By the way I am convinced about multiple endings - those will happen in
Muse when I get around to it.  The abc support will probably come in even
later, but I'm not arguing about what's wanted).

The history of Muse was that I got fed up with trying to use some other
packages and decided to write my own.  The urgent need was the music (mainly
English) that we played in the Spike Island Band.  A lot of things were more
important than modes so they weren't the first thing I did, but when they
did get on to the wish-list they quickly made it to the top.

I appreciate that you don't like it that way.  You've said so often.  That's
your opinion.  I suspect that your opinion was influenced by writing a
converter to Noteworthy where you didn't have any obvious place to put the
mode.  (Did you stick it in as an annotation [I hope] or did you throw it
away).  No matter.  I recall suggesting you got on to the Noteworthy guys
and ask them to put them in.  Maybe they are not that flexible.  Well if so
that's their problem or your problem, but not mine.  But no matter whatever
the reason for your opinion you are entitled to it.  But understand that I,
too am entitled to mine.  I am actually allowed to like things a particular
way, even if you don't.

And I for one have never written "I want it my way and no other."

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 6:58 PM
Subject: [abcusers] Anarchy


John Chambers wrote -

>Well, actually, last evening at this time I was playing  music  at  a
>contra  dance  with some nice people.

I'm delighted to hear it.  Do all these nice people share the same
self-centred "I want it my way and no other." that you seem to think is
completely standard human behavior?  How do you ever agree on what tune to
play?

>I think it was variants of the  principle  expressed  recently  here,
>that  key+mode is more useful information than just the signature.

It's only useful if it's right.  A quick look at a few minor or modal tunes
on your Tune Finder will show how often it's wrong.  I've asked this
question
before and it was ignored - Why is it better to have Eminor tunes notated as
K:G than as K:^F?

>Some musicians don't understand keys and  modes,  and
>just  want  to  be told what notes to play.  An

Re: [abcusers] Muse

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Thanks.

Muse2 (hopefully out in another month or so) has prettier notes.
The restriction on different notes starting at the same time has gone away.
that probably blows away some of your tab problems too.
The options for setting up tab generation are probably going to be fixed in
the release after.

In the ABC area it will have w: and W: support.

I'll probably rework the V: stuff a little - it already supports multi
voice, just a question of trying to keep the syntax as generous as possible.
For instance at the moment
V:3
Ace
is OK but
[V:3]Dead
is not.  So trivial changes like that will probably get done while I'm at
it.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Forgeot Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 11:01 PM
Subject: [abcusers] Muse


>And incidentally, was Muse one of the programs that you tried?

Yes, the first programs I tried when I first heard of abc (when I
discovered internet as well) were Muse and Abc2win.

To be honest, I was first reluctant to Muse because of the drawing
of the notes. But I tried it anyway and find there was several
useful options / editing facilities. It can many features,
including transposing (good idea the "transpose, play different
look the same"  and conversely) and several more I didn't catch
yet. And it's really efficient to enter notes with it.
But I made a separation between pure abc applications and programs
such as Muse, MusEdit, TablEdit, MusicEase, Stringwalker etc.
which can a bit abc but are not dedicated to it (the fact that
none of the above can edit the abc "source code" denote that, and
they even not have multivoice support, and advanced abc features).
Muse seems to be tablature-oriented and it seems to do that well.
Someone asked one day for a guitar tablature application and I
recommended to try TablEdit and Muse.

Generally speaking, I think the main drawback of Muse is the
display, can't you use true type fonts, like Abc2Win ? There is
certainly domain public musical fonts you could use. It's true the
apparence is not primordial for working on music, but it could be
an advantage to look nicer.

The way of changing options, only in the menu bar, is a bit
frustrating because if you want to configure the guitar tab for
example, you have to go to > options > muse settings > tablature
generation settings > [option to change] several times : if there
was a "pop up" window with all the "tablature generation
settings", you could change this quicker.

To be able to select with the mouse would be better than to select
with < and > (or to have the choise of the two)

About tablatures, I'm using to generate ascii tab a freeware
called PowerTab. It has an efficient feature called Shifter tool
and can "shift string-wise" or "fret-wise", so it's quite quick
and easy to configure several notes as wanted. Muse goes a bit
further in configuration, but it's longer to configure.

There is also something strange. I've guitar partitions (no tab,
only partitions) in abc and I use two voices (or more) because
it's not possible to write chords with different note lengths in
abc (like [E2A2c2e/] and unfortunately nobody seems to complain
about this limitation), so it doesn't work well in Muse if I
import the abc, but it's not the problem if I use a converted midi
file. The problem is the tab should look like this :

Gavotte 1 (R. de Visée)

   2/2

||--0---0-|-0-|--5---3-|-1-3-0---0---0-|-0-||
||o-1-|-1--0-3-10-|-1--|-0-|-0o||
||--2-|-2--2--1---|-2--2-0-|-2-0-1-|-1-||
||--2-|---|-2--3---2---|-2---3---2-|-2-||
||o---|---||---|--o||
|||---||---|---||

and it can display well in Muse, but after exportation to .tab
ascii file, the chords are now arppegio :

E---0-|---=---0-|-0-=---|
B-1---|-=---=---|---1-0---3---1---=---0-|
G---2-|---=---=-|-2-=---2---1---=---|
D-2---|-=---=---|---|
A-|-|---|
E-|-|---|

5---=---3-|---1---3---0---=---0---0-|
--1---|-0---|
2---2-0---|-2---0-1-|
--2-3-=---2---=---|-2---=---3---2---|
--|-|
--|-|

Maybe I missed an option ?

The = for tied notes are not really relevant in an ascii tab. To
have only the bare tab could be better (or to have the choice to
get rid of the =). In fact it's still possible to replace with a
text editor the = by - o so it's not a re

Re: [abcusers] modes (again)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Laurie>Sure, but I've seen quite a few tunes with K:D and then every
single C in the piece naturalised.  In those cases invariably the
description
is half right - the tonic D is right, but the mode is wrong.

Eric> so does it means the right notation was to write K:Dm ?

Probably K:Ddor

Dm tends to acquire ^C as a leading note.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re: Modes (and iabc & skink)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

John Chambers wrote: "...But one of the real problems with the tonic+mode is
that  there's  a lot  of  abc out there that simply has it wrong"

Sure, but I've seen quite a few tunes with K:D and then every single C in
the piece naturalised.  In those cases invariably the description is half
right - the tonic D is right, but the mode is wrong.  If the key signature
were given as ^F^C then it wouldn't even be half right.  (Anyway it's all
too late, this was cast in concrete before I even heard of ABC).

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re: Modes (and iabc & skink (and ABC standards processes))

[Laurie (ukonline)]

The process is what is properly called "Anarchy" which means there are no
rulers.

Actually there are rules, probably even some written ones, definitely some
unwritten, probably some written but wrong, but there are no rulers and no
police with any power.  This has many consequences.  I suggest we all just
learn to live with them because that's the way it appears to be.  That's the
Internet.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

E-flat is better known as "D capo one" or "C capo 3"!

- Original Message -
From: "Don Parrish-Bell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general


yes,  and cursed be those who would wish to force us to play in Eb on
guitar!   I often
wondered is those chords on some sheet music were put there by someone who
has never
played guitar!

Don

"Laurie (ukonline)" wrote:

> One reason for preferring sharps for guitar chords is that if they are
> actually to be played on a *guitar*, you can always move a shape up the
neck
> by a fret, so that I can immediately think of several ways to play A#.  Of
> course they need barlocks, but there's not always a way round that.  On
the
> other hand the chords of Ab, Db, Eb, Gb and for that matter Cb all require
a
> mental shifting of gears to avoid having to use fret number minus one.
>
> I'm pleased to say that in Muse the option to force the guitar chords into
> sharps is indeed optional.
>
> Laurie
> - Original Message -
> From: "Atte Andre Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 10:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in
general
>
> On 22 Jun 2002, Laura Conrad wrote:
>
> > >>>>> "laurie" == laurie griffiths  writes:
> >
> > laurie> Why does transposition need to understand the mode?
> >
> > Currently, the abc2midi transposer only understands the key
> > signature.  So if I have a piece in D dorian, and I transpose it up 3
> > half notes, the transposed output is in Ab.  It should be in F dorian.
>
> And even worse: most (all?) guitar-chords with a black-key root is
> translated into sharp rooted version:
>
> X:1
> T:test
> M:4/4
> L:1/4
> C:Atte
> K:C
> "C"CDEF | "Bb7"GFED | "Ab7"C4 | "G7"z4
>
> Becomes this after "abc2abc org.abc -t 2" (the A#7 should have been Bb7):
>
> X: 1
> T:test
> M:4/4
> L:1/4
> C:Atte
> K:D
> "D"DEFG | "C7"AGFE | "A#7"D4 | "A7"z4
>
> although "abc2abc org.abc -t 5" is ok:
>
> X: 1
> T:test
> M:4/4
> L:1/4
> C:Atte
> K:F
> "F"FGAB | "Eb7"cBAG | "Db7"F4 | "C7"z4
>
> Maybe it's because my harmonies are more chromatic than my melodies, but I
> fell the most transposition hickups by abc2abc is in the guitar-chords...
> --
> love, peace & harmony
> Atte
>
> 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

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] Otche Nash

[Laurie (ukonline)]

A translation won't really work very well, because the English and Russian
don't have the same number of syllables, not to mention a slightly different
word order etc.  You can get a translation out of any Bible anyway.  As
"otche" is an obsolete vocative case of "father" you'll want the King James
translation beginning "our father, which art in heaven" which has a suitably
obsolete "art" in the English.

I intend (maybe, God willing) to post a version with the actual Russian,
i.e. Cyrillic script.
Of course the email will probably throw away the font information but any
reader who has access to Cyrillic fonts (not too hard, they were on my
Windows CD) could tell their favourite word processor to show those bits in
Cyrillic and voila!

I'd actually be interested to know how well ABC does support foreign
alphabets.  One of the pleasant surprises with Muse was when a customer of
mine reported a bug and sent me an example.  When I looked at it I found
that the words were in Greek, and I hadn't even realised that Windows had
given me that support for free.

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 7:16 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Otche Nash



When the tranlation is entered in the ABC, will someone post the ABC for it
again?

Thanks.

Rick


On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 18:23:44 +0100 "Laurie (ukonline)"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

The penny has just dropped.  (It's hard reading these transliterations).

It's the Lord's Prayer!

Otche is approximately "atyets" (stress the "yets") = father.
Nash = "our".

I bet you can now manage to translate all the other words and if you count
the lines carefully you might even know whether to stop at "evil" or go on
about "power and glory".

Laurie

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] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Remember that accordions also have chord buttons.
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general


>I often wondered is those chords on some sheet >music were put there by
someone who has never
>played guitar!

Yes.  ;-)


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] Otche Nash

[Laurie (ukonline)]

The penny has just dropped.  (It's hard reading these transliterations).

It's the Lord's Prayer!

Otche is approximately "atyets" (stress the "yets") = father.
Nash = "our".

I bet you can now manage to translate all the other words and if you count
the lines carefully you might even know whether to stop at "evil" or go on
about "power and glory".

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Otche Nash

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Guido said :"...Sorry for not providing the original Russian lyrics,...,
I'll be glad
to accept them."

I'm trying to get a Russian friend of mine to supply them and if she comes
up with the goods I'll type them in.
L.

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Question about rhythm notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

If you ever try importing a MIDI file you rapidly realise that this is a
simple case.
Any non-Balkan time signature has a standard division into beats and
subdivisions (beyond some point it's just continual dividing by two).

You pad up to the next whole beat in steadily increasing multiples.  Use the
Greedy algorithm, but put the bits in in reverse order e.g.
c/-c-c///-c//-c/-c/-c2.  Then you do beats up to the next bar, then
whole bars, then beats to the end of the next whole beat, then Greedy in
forwards order until you get within a quantum of home, and you're done.

Balkan time signatures no doubt also have a proper division but it's less
well known around here.

The more entertaining part of MIDI import is tempo following to know where
the beats currently fall in real time and then guessing how seriously to
take the not end times (Yeah, so it was only 20mSec, but its an off-beat so
it's still a quarter note, just a tad staccato, not worth notating really).

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Question about rhythm notation


| How should a program handle this:
| M:3/4
| L:1/4
| A5 A| ...
|
| I think what the author was intending was:
| A4- AA|

One of the reasons I'd expect a lot of programmers to throw
up their hands at this is illustrated by:

  M:6/8
  L:1/8
  A5 A| ...

Most musicians would object to rewriting this  as  A4-  AA,
and  would suggest that A3- A2A is the right way.  A bit of
thought about  how  one  might  attempt  to  implement  the
general  case  will  rather  quickly lead to the conclusion
that a fatal error message is a much better solution.

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] Question about rhythm notation

[Laurie (ukonline)]

The attitude that I take in Muse is that Muse does beaming automatically, so
I disregard the beaming information in the ABC.  I can argue both sides of
this, but the argument for this action is that fundamentally ABC is about
describing the music, not the printed page.  What Muse does is to
*translate* ABC into staff notation and in doing so makes a great many
decisions (relative spacing of notes, margins, vertical alignment of the
different voices, how far apart and how thick to draw the lines of the
staff, how thick are leger lines, etc. etc. and finally, which notes to
beam.  In fact I've just been rewriting the beaming engine in Muse and it
seems to me that trying to express beaming in ABC in all but the simplest
cases is impossible.

For instance consider even [GB]A and I want the G and A to be beamed but the
B to be a separate flag.  Or if you think you can solve that one ( perhaps
[B G]A ) then how about [BG] [AF] and I want the B to be beamed with the A,
tails up  and the G with the F, tails down.

It can get much, much worse than this.  Get a Messiah choral score and look
at the accompianist's(*) part for "Surely He hath borne our griefs".  A
solution is probably to use V: and recognise that these are separate voices
(and Frank, for one, can supply very complex examples).

In general I think the attitude of programs should be that where the ABC
cannot be directly expressed in the new notation it is to be *translated*
into some equivalent.  In just the same way, when translating English into
American "don't play the fool" goes across directly but "stop buggering
about" doesn't and "let's table this proposal" needs a complete rewrite.

So, yes. A4- AA or perhaps A4-A A

Laurie
(*) It started as a misprint, but was too good to waste.
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 4:43 AM
Subject: [abcusers] Question about rhythm notation


How should a program handle this:
M:3/4
L:1/4
A5 A| ...

I think what the author was intending was:
A4- AA|

but since there is no '1/2 dot' in music that I know of, there is really no
note head that corresponds to A5.  Since beaming in ABC is defined by the
music and not the program, I had taken this to mean that a single note
should correspond to a note with a single beam.

In the A5 case it was pretty obvious what to do, but in the more general
case, is there something that ABC defines, or people expect to happen, when
the note duration explicitly specified doesn't correspond to a known note
length?

Thanks for the input,
Aaron

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] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

One reason for preferring sharps for guitar chords is that if they are
actually to be played on a *guitar*, you can always move a shape up the neck
by a fret, so that I can immediately think of several ways to play A#.  Of
course they need barlocks, but there's not always a way round that.  On the
other hand the chords of Ab, Db, Eb, Gb and for that matter Cb all require a
mental shifting of gears to avoid having to use fret number minus one.

I'm pleased to say that in Muse the option to force the guitar chords into
sharps is indeed optional.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Atte Andre Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2002 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general


On 22 Jun 2002, Laura Conrad wrote:

> > "laurie" == laurie griffiths  writes:
>
> laurie> Why does transposition need to understand the mode?
>
> Currently, the abc2midi transposer only understands the key
> signature.  So if I have a piece in D dorian, and I transpose it up 3
> half notes, the transposed output is in Ab.  It should be in F dorian.

And even worse: most (all?) guitar-chords with a black-key root is
translated into sharp rooted version:

X:1
T:test
M:4/4
L:1/4
C:Atte
K:C
"C"CDEF | "Bb7"GFED | "Ab7"C4 | "G7"z4

Becomes this after "abc2abc org.abc -t 2" (the A#7 should have been Bb7):

X: 1
T:test
M:4/4
L:1/4
C:Atte
K:D
"D"DEFG | "C7"AGFE | "A#7"D4 | "A7"z4

although "abc2abc org.abc -t 5" is ok:

X: 1
T:test
M:4/4
L:1/4
C:Atte
K:F
"F"FGAB | "Eb7"cBAG | "Db7"F4 | "C7"z4

Maybe it's because my harmonies are more chromatic than my melodies, but I
fell the most transposition hickups by abc2abc is in the guitar-chords...
--
love, peace & harmony
Atte


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] Re: transposition and modes

[Laurie (ukonline)]

| >Of course if a key signature had a note flatted and the music had it
| >double-sharped then (1) a triple-sharp would be needed and (2) the input
| >file is silly anyway so who cares?
|
| No (1) is wrong because accidentals are absolute, rather than relative.

Beg to differ.  If it was flatted in the key-sig and is double-sharped then
it is to play 3 semitones higher than normal.  If that was transposed into
the open key then it would require a triple-sharp or else moving it onto a
different staff position (breaking your staff placement rule which turns out
to be the same as my "slavishly copy" rule).

L.


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

[abcusers] Re: transposition and modes

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Laurie> Why does transposition need to understand the mode?

Laura> Currently, the abc2midi transposer only understands the key
signature.  So if I have a piece in D dorian, and I transpose it up 3 half
notes, the transposed output is in Ab.  It should be in F dorian.

Oh, is that all?

I would hardly call the ability to copy the name of the mode from input to
output "understanding" it.  I thought it might have been something to do
with whether a note should be called F# (or ^F) in D phrygian (2 flats) but
Gb (or _G) in some other 2-flats mode (F mix??) and I was all ready to start
busting my head to figure out a good algorithm!

Actually I think there *is* something about deciding how a given note is to
be represented (which, aside from tempering questions, is a reason for
wanting double-sharp and double-flat symbols) but "slavishly copy the input"
seems to work.  (I plead guilty - Muse does not yet do double-accidentals).
In other words if the effect of an accidental in the original was to modify
the note by n (signed number) semitones then do the same to the output.

Of course if a key signature had a note flatted and the music had it
double-sharped then (1) a triple-sharp would be needed and (2) the input
file is silly anyway so who cares?

I await Frank's counter-example!!

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

From: "Jack Campin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
!
!
!Here are a few more application-level things that might make life
!easier:
!We need:
! * transposition (which understands the mode of what's being
!   transposed)
!
!

Why does transposition need to understand the mode?  

Am I missing something?

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

| >- add keyboard shortcuts for every command (or for the most used
| >at least)
|
| Yes, although with over 100 menu commands there aren't enough
| keys to go round.

I think I counted that Muse has about 70 shortcuts defined (so there's heavy
use of Ctrl+this and Shift+that).  It would be a very expert user that knew
them all.

I have recently been putting more and more function into right-click pop-up
menus (for instance to change the length of a note, the clef, etc) and even
more effort into "in-place" editing.

As soon as you have a few bars entered, the music becomes a palette of
things to do for the rest.  So you can clone (almost) any symbol and enter
it elsewhere.  By definition, the more common symbols in your style of music
are the ones that are right there on the screen ready to clone.

Beyond that, many symbols can be edited in-place.  The usual mechanism I use
is to hold down Ctrl and use the cursor keys.  Thus you can edit a tempo
indication to change the value of the note or the number per minute, the
length of a note, the pitch of a note (nudging it up may introduce a sharp,
nudging it up again may kill the sharp and move it up on the staff).  A
chord symbol can be cycled through the possible chord roots and types (G7
<=>G#7 <=> A7 etc or G <=>G7 <=> Gm <=>Gdim etc).  In fact most music
symbols can be edited this way.

This is much easier than trying to memorise all the shortcuts.  [weasel
words - some of the above function is not yet published, but if anyone with
Windows wants to volunteer as a beta tester they can have a look].

Now I appreciate that this is not "ABC" and some people may se me as wearing
horns - but I just see this, ABC, my fiddle and so on as complementary ways
of making and communicating music.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Interesting.  The thing that has bothered me for a long time is whether
being able to have files dropped on you is worth a megabyte of download
time.

When I built Muse I avoided MFC because the instant you touch it the file
size goes up by a megabyte (it may be more).  Now it may be possible to be a
drop target "the hard way" and only use a few bytes, and the Internet is
getting faster, but are we there yet.  (In fact I compile Muse with MSDev 4
because that also gave a smaller executable).

This is the reason why you can't drop files onto Muse.

On the other hand, it gives huge amount of function, I am frequently told
that it's very easy to use (contrast the endless notes on this forum about
how do you tweak this or that abc app to overcome its limitations) and is
just over 300K to download and that includes the online help which is about
the same size as the executable.

So, while I agree with all of the sentiments expressed - I also must add
that a "normal user can expect" the Internet to download a 3MB file in 10
seconds.

Of course he/she will be disappointed!!

So (and obviously this is a matter of opinion) what are these functions
worth in download space?

And incidentally, was Muse one of the programs that you tried?  I'm
currently doing a massive re-write and "being a drop target" is actually not
one of the things I was going to do.  I thought that before doing that I
would do:
* Much better support for piano-like scores
* Much better support for lyrics
* Much better ease of entry (and it was already very good)
   (I'm keying in the choruses of The Messiah as a test case for that lot)
* Much easier control of play (quite a few choral singers use it to help
learn their parts).
* Live MIDI input (which has always been just over the horizon because it
sort of works, but gives more effort in post-editing than it saved in
typing).
* Easier/better guitar tablature generation

An I may throw in a "suggest a guitar chord" function because it looks like
fun.

The lyrics stuff will probably include support for w: and W: in ABC.

Opinions?

Incidentally, I presume that Muse was not one of the ones you tried as it
has not been recently announced on the list.  If you give it a try, do let
me know what you think.  If you want to be a guinea pig for the rewrite, I
have fairly robust running code, though obviously not all the above features
are yet working and the on-line help is very much behind.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Forgeot Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 8:46 PM
Subject: [abcusers] iabc, and features expected in softwares in general


I've downloaded the recent softwares annonced on the list. For
iabc, the display is really better than previous version (even if
it's not at the level of postscript application) and it looks
promising. But there is still some limitations.

Here is what a "normal" user can expect from a software
(especially music / abc related). It's only my preferences and
several users would not understand my wishes but it may help
nevertheless. It's not about display / hearing abc, but it's about
program conveniences and file management.

In my opinion this software should :

- open files with "drag and drop" (for windows, but maybe for
other O/S too)

- when you open file from the dialog box (file...open... etc.),
give the choice in the file type filter to choose other extensions
(not only *.abc, but *.* ) otherwise (especially if there is no
"drag and drop support"), there is no way to open a file which
have a bad choosen extension (for example *.txt instead *.abc),
unless to rename it.  There is this limitation in iabc

- allow to enter data directly into the application, without
opening any file (from an other application with "copy and paste,
or from scratch) : skink does this very well with its conveniant
field when we can enter notes.

- not "lock" a file loaded especially if it doesn't write anything
in it : in iabc it's not possible to make correction in an abc
file (with an ascii editor for example) and then save it to review
it later in iabc : the file is write protected by iabc. And if you
load an other file in order to "free" the previous file, the
previous is still locked : you just have to close iabc and then
open the application again, find the right folder, reload the file
etc.

- save folder preferences (favorite folders ) and keep the last
directory used in a configuration (log or .ini) file.

- add keyboard shortcuts for every command (or for the most used
at least)

- follow the general convention for shortcuts ("ctrl + c" for
copy, "ctrl + a" for select all etc.)

- when several tunes are processed, not stop if it detects an
error in a tune : just ignore the tune and follow on with the
other tunes

- eventually try to display the tune nevertheless if an error is
detected (but gives warnings) : it's maybe a minor one
(unsupported feature) and the tune may look quite the same

- gives a lot of option (pos

Re: [abcusers] Music Engraving Today

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I tend to use "Essential Dictionary of Music Notation" by Tom Gerou and
Linda Lusk.  ISBN 0-88284-768-6
It's clear and it's short.

- Original Message -
From: "Bob Archer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 12:12 AM
Subject: [abcusers] Music Engraving Today


I was just wondering if anyone has read this and could comment on it.
It looks like it might be useful to anyone writing a notation
program:

http://www.npcimaging.com/books/Powell.htm

Also, slightly off topic, those people running websites might like to
check out the zits cartoons for the last few days. Start at:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/zits.asp?date=20020617

and work forward.

Bob


--
-- Bob Archer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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] about Otche Nash

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Why not include the Cyrillic?  Anyone who puts it into the right font will
then see the original.  Remember those spam messages?  Âîñìîæíî!
(Transliteration: vasmozhno!  Translation: It's possible!)

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Guido Gonzato" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 7:50 AM
Subject: [abcusers] about Otche Nash


On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Frank Nordberg wrote:

> > Should I repost it?
>
> Please do!

I have some doubts as to how to transcribe some Russian words using our
alphabet. I'll get a friend who can speak Russian help me, and I'll repost
Otche Nash probably next monday.

Later,
  Guido =8-)

--
Guido Gonzato, Ph.D.  - 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 8027928 --- 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] Re: Antialiasing

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Yes - I am absolutely sure that it was not in the master copy because I made
a complete fool of myself telling him that he should have printed one copy
and photocpied it.  He said that is what had been done.  I said "no way" or
words to that effect and he said that as he had done it himself, personally,
...

So I learnt something about photocopiers!

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 12:49 PM
Subject: [abcusers] Re: Antialiasing


Laurie wrote:

 >One favourite trick of ink-jet printers is to develop a blocked
 >jet and this can do horrible things to horizontal lines of
 >staffs. You tend to notice them at gigs when you suddenly
 >realise the music is unreadable. Top or bottom lines are deadly,
 >but the in-between ones are pretty bad too. I thought that
 >photocopiers were immune to this, but I recently went to a
 >workshop where the chap who ran it (Dave Brown) had printed one
 >master copy of the music and photocopied it many times to hand
 >out to the participants. He described it as a "high quality"
 >photocopier. It must have been a really high-tech one that
 >rasterised the image. It also must have had the page
 >horizontally aligned to high precision because it managed to
 >lose staff lines. On one page you could actually see the line
 >fading out as it went across the page and on another (presumably
 >later) copy of the same page there was no trace of it at all.
 >
 >A little mis-alignment would have worked wonders!

To me it sounds much more likely that the flaw was in the master copy.
Are you sure this wasn't the case?

  __  /\/\/\/\
 <__> | | | | |  David Barnert
 <__> | | | | |  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 <__> | | | | |  Albany, N.Y.
 <__> \/\/\/\/

Ventilator   Concertina
  Bellows  Bellows
(Vocation)   (Avocation)

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] "Embro, Embro" CD-ROM

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I haven't messed with music in pdf enough to be sure if it can happen, but
if a staff line is only a single row of pixels then simple-minded algorithms
can sometimes drop the row altogether and that is a complete disaster.

Incidentally, I make sure that I keep the master copies of the music for our
band BOTH as hard copies and as electronic files (Muse rather than ABC, but
the principle is the same).  One favourite trick of ink-jet printers is to
develop a blocked jet and this can do horrible things to horizontal lines of
staffs.  You tend to notice them at gigs when you suddenly realise the music
is unreadable.  Top or bottom lines are deadly, but the in-between ones are
pretty bad too.  I thought that photocopiers were immune to this, but I
recently went to a workshop where the chap who ran it (Dave Brown) had
printed one master copy of the music and photocopied it many times to hand
out to the participants.  He described it as a "high quality" photocopier.
It must have been a really high-tech one that rasterised the image.  It also
must have had the page horizontally aligned to high precision because it
managed to lose staff lines.  On one page you could actually see the line
fading out as it went across the page and on another (presumably later) copy
of the same page there was no trace of it at all.

A little mis-alignment would have worked wonders!

I know this is pretty tangential to ABC, but I thought it might be of
interest.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] "Embro, Embro" CD-ROM


Phil Taylor wrote:
| Acrobat Reader doesn't understand music, and (for example) doesn't know
| that staff lines MUST be equally spaced.  If (as usually happens) the
| spacing of the staff lines doesn't fit the pixel spacing it tries to
| make up for this by antialiasing them, so they come out fuzzy and
different
| thicknesses.  All of which is irrelevant if you print on a high resolution
| printer, but it looks bad on screen.

This is a problem with boh  Acrobat  (acroread)  and  Ghostview,  and
probably  with  any  other  PS  or PDF viewer.  It took me a while to
discover why music looked so awful with ghostview.  Finally  I  tried
turning  off the antialiasing (though I didn't really have much of an
idea what that did), and then the music looked really nice.  It  does
have  a  problem  on a small screen or small window, with staff lines
not quite evenly spaced.  But this is better than  what  antialiasing
does to the staffs.

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] "Embro, Embro" CD-ROM

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Too true!  I remember having a *lot* of "fun" with Muse over just such
pixellation-on-screen and spacing problems in the early days.
L.
- Original Message -
From: "Phil Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
...
Acrobat Reader doesn't understand music, and (for example) doesn't know
that staff lines MUST be equally spaced.  If (as usually happens) the
spacing of the staff lines doesn't fit the pixel spacing it tries to
make up for this by antialiasing them, so they come out fuzzy and different
thicknesses.  All of which is irrelevant if you print on a high resolution
printer, but it looks bad on screen.

The pictures were made by BarFly, which does understand music, and makes
lots of little compromises to make the music readable on screen.

Phil Taylor


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] resons for using abc

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I have performed magic on stage in the past.  There was of course always a
mundane behind-the-scenes explanation of what appeared to happen, there was
some effort needed to implement the tricks, some people to whom credit was
due, etc.

It's definitely magic.

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Laurie writes:
| JC's tune finder is magic.
|
|  ... one number I really liked but I was unable to learn it there ...
|  I asked what it was called ... and I now have
| about 10 different versions of it.  Magic.

Hmmm  I should object to this. It's not magic. There's a bunch of
code  behind  it,


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] resons for using abc

[Laurie (ukonline)]

JC's tune finder is magic.

For instance I was at the last M27 Megabop which Rufus Returns played at.
They played one number I really liked but I was unable to learn it there and
then (no Mozart, I).  I went to Chipenham Folk Festival last weekend and
someone played it in the English Session in the Rose and Crown barn.  I
asked what it was called (The Dark Girl Dressed in Blue) and I now have
about 10 different versions of it.  Magic.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] P: Field

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Phil asked in passing "(Do any player programs other than BarFly currently
implement part-order playing in multivoice tunes?  If so, how do they do
it?)"

Muse doesn't.  When I wrote the playing stuff I couldn't figure out how P:
was supposed to interact with repeat structures, let alone voices - so I
threw up my mental hands and moved on.  This despite the fact that I've
played in a barn dance band for 20 years where we routinely say things like
"one more A to finish" or more critically, when someone has failed to
correctly count repeats, we bellow "*B!*".

Actually, as I type this I think I almost (see below) see what I should have
done.  If you regard A, B etc not as labels identifying parts of a tune, but
as labels in the playback order then it's just a "goto" statement.  If it
lies within some repeat structure then it means goto that point and play as
though we are part way through the FIRST time that point is encountered in
the playback that we would have without the Ps.  This means that in the
context of
|: feed | feed |1 deaf :|2 face || beef |
there would be no way to get it to play "feed face beef" as that requires
picking things up on the second time through.
"feed feed face beef" would just be possible by putting a label at the end
of the 1 section
|: feed | feed |1 deaf [P:B] :|2 face || beef |

And now the "almost" bit:  Encountering another label presumably means "stop
playing".  But what about encountering the same label again?  Is the rule
that if the label encountered is the next label in the playback sequence
then just ignore it and keep going, but otherwise stop and "goto" the next
label in the sequence, if any?

For instance

|: [P:A] feed | feed |1 deaf :|2 face || [P:B] beef |

Does an instruction to play AA mean playing
 feed feed deaf feed feed face?
Does an instruction to play AB mean playing
 feed feed deaf beef?

That second one looks unfortunate as when you ask a musician to play AB they
would normally play the *last* version of A - but I can't see the algorithm,
especially as playing not AB but AC would mean to a folk musician "play
whichever version of A you think leads best into the C music"

What exactly does BarFly do?

In the context of a GUI editor, labelling all the voices is not hard - I
could provide a command that will label all the voices with one "point and
shoot" command.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Don Parrish-Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> had a wish-list.
Here's how Muse shapes up (no, it's not 100%, though if I were a beginner
user I might think it was until I discovered the fine details).

> 1. Enter guitar TAB, tool creates sheet music and TAB as you go.
Yes

>2. Ability to add lyrics and guitar chords (text and chart format) and/or
> text notes to the score
Lyrics, yes,
Guitar chords yes but only text format,
Text notes yes
and you can have any or all of these at once.

>3. Ability to strip out just lyrics or lyrics and guitar chords from an
> existing tune (the tune could have been written in whatever
> format is native to the tool)
You can get just the ly-rics eas-i-ly e-nough to paste them in-to a word
pro-ces-sor but they will still contain hy-phen-a-tion to show how they are
split a-cross the notes if you see what I mean.

>4. Enter sheet music, tool attempts to create guitar TAB (obviously
>you'll need to do some touch ups here and there to make it actually
> playable)
Yes, and then having fixed the odd note here and there you can tell it to
have another go at the generation, interpolating between your fixed points -
so that when you tell it to play some note on fret 12 it will realise that
your wrist is a long way from the nut and not put the next or previous note
on fret 3.  That way you only need to touch up the odd note and the rest
falls into place.

> 5. MIDI IN/OUT (pretty standard feature, from what I see)
MIDI files either way, yes
Live MIDI out, yes
Live MIDI in - no (because the results are not very good - just too much
post-editing until/unless I get the tempo following right).

> 6. Actually knows what the heck a repeat is!!  A lot of things I've
> tried ignore the repeats.
If you mean detecting repeat in MIDI in, even from a MIDI file, this is
tricky.  If you mean output then yes, of course, with variant endings if
need be.

> 7. Doesn't require taking out a second mortgage on your house to buy it!
Not many banks are interested in £20 (about $30 US) mortgages

>8. Has some keyboard-shortcut method of selecting note duration instead of
> having to always use the mouse.
Yes

> 9. Outputs in abc, PDF, etc. format.
Will do abc, MIDI or its own format directly.
Will print on any printer that Windows supports.
With a little trickery using Windows it will do PostScript.
Not PDF directly.
Doesn't do etc. format at all.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Some minor complaints about abc

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Buddha wrote"... Other tools, like Muse, are full-fledged score-editing
programs like I assume MusicTime is, but will read and write abc as well."

Actually, my frustration with MusicTime was the last straw that drove me to
develop Muse!

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] resons for using abc

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Atte: "speed? I think I'm faster in abc than I used to be in encore, but I'm
not sure..."

Phil: "When using a graphical music editor to type music in from a score,
this is what you spend most time doing:
*Look at the score, see that the next note is A and it's 1/8.
etc"

OUCH!  Get Muse!

OK - I don't want to knock ABC, but I have to put the other side of the
argument.

The way that I enter stuff in Muse is typically to use up and down arrow
keys to move the cursor up and down the staff and the number keys to control
the note length - 4 is a 1/4 note, then 3 is a 1/2 note 2 is twice as long
again, likewise 5 is 1/8 etc.)

So if I use ^ to represent the cursor up-arrow and v to represent the cursor
down arrow,  to enter Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I'd type
4444^44v3v44v44v44v3p

The "p" on the end says "play it back to me.  After entering each note the
cursor moves on a little.  To get a dotted note I type a "." (American:
period, English: full-stop) after the note. After finding the starting note,
the above works in any key.  For ABC to write it in A major, I'd have to
change it to "G G d d e e d2 c c B B A A G2" into (say) "A A e e f f e2 d d
c c B B A2"

As each note is entered, the software plays the note to you, so you get
immediate feedback that the pitch is correct BY LISTENING, you only need the
final playback to check the timing.

If you hit a wrong note then Ctrl+ will drag the note to
the next pitch above or below and again, plays the new note as it does so.
If the timing is wrong then Ctrl+ will stretch or
shrink it.  (e.g. Ctrl+right arrow does 1/8 -> 3/16 -> 1/4 -> 3/8 -> 1/2
etc).

Enough said.  Long live ABC! I have nothing against it but entering tadpoles
by keyboard can be quick too!

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re: The F > F (and F > F2) problems

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Frank asked "I really wonder what the results from other abc applications
are."

Well,  (deep breath) Muse didn't like it a lot.

It generates a bug report saying "ABC ties don't match Muse ties. Please
report this bug to me."  That is one of quite a learge number of messages in
Muse that are never supposed to appear (Assertions in the jargon), so in
other words it broke Muse.

Muse also produced many complaints (the listing below only works with a
fixed space font) in which it in effect reported its own limitations without
being broken.  I think "Evil Grin" would be just fine as a title.

T:none
C:Frank Nordberg
V:1 program 1 64
V:2 program 1 25 transpose -12
M:10/16
L:1/8
Q:5/16=100
K:Flyd _G
   ^
>>> Unknown symbol in K: field

V:1
z>z2 z>z2|:z>z2 z>z2|F>F2 F2FE/ F3/-F/B/-|
V:2
.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|:.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\
   ^
>>> Cannot tie across a Repeat control. (Muse restriction - tie deleted.)

.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|
%
V:1
B>AG < FE/F/|G>G2 G2BG/ F>AD/|[1((3C/D/Cz2:|
V:2
.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\
.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|[1.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/):|
%
V:1
[2((3C/D/C(F/G//A//B//||c3/-c- c3/-c)|(cdcAB)|c3/-c- c3/-c|
V:2
[2.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)||.G,G/(C/B,/) G/G,/G/(C/B,/)|\
.G,G/(C/B,/) G/G,/G/(C/B,/)|.G,G/(C/B,/) G/G,/G/(C/B,/)|
%
V:1
(cdcAB)|d(c/(3d/c/B/ A->A2-|[M:5/16]A> (3FD/C/|[M:10/16]B,>DC/
  ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  ":5/16]A> (3FD/C/|[M:10/16]B,>DC/"

   ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "5/16]A> (3FD/C/|[M:10/16]B,>DC/"

 ^
>>> Cannot tie across a Repeat control. (Muse restriction - tie deleted.)

  ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "6]A> (3FD/C/|[M:10/16]B,>DC/"

 ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  ":10/16]B,>DC/"

   ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "0/16]B,>DC/"

  ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "6]B,>DC/"

B,3/-B,-|B,)>z2 z>z2||
V:2
.G,G/(C/B,/) G/G,/G/(C/B,/)|.G,G/(C/B,/) G/G,/G/(C/B,/)|\
[M:5/16].G,G/(C/B,/)|[M:10/16].F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\
  ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol
":5/16].G,G/(C/B,/)|[M:10/16].F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

   ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "5/16].G,G/(C/B,/)|[M:10/16].F,F/(C/B,/)
F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

  ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "6].G,G/(C/B,/)|[M:10/16].F,F/(C/B,/)
F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

   ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  ":10/16].F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

 ^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "0/16].F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

^
>>> Ignoring unexpected ABC symbol  "6].F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|\"

.F,F/(C/B,/) F/F,/F/(C/B,/)|




To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Fingering for instruments... (was : To tell the dancer from the dance)

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> abcm2ps allows
> !0!C!1!D !2!E!3!F !4!G!5!A !+!B c
> to display nice numbers above staff and
> the w: field to display them below...

The above looks pretty hideous and if you put the fingerings in w:, where do
you put the words?

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] The F > F (and F > F2) problems

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Phil Wrote"
 Laurie wrote "My vote is 1. Deprecated..."

Er, what are you proposing to deprecate?"

Sorry - too hasty.  Deprecate > or < between unequal length notes such as
F>F2 or F2>F.

As to how much time to transfer - well given that it's already deprecated
this is getting picky - I'd just say "some".
Like I said, one band I play in transfers about half and another one about
two thirds and then Claire sometimes like to play Gilderoy without any
dottedness at all, so since it's all rather moot, I'd rather stay mute.  :-)

Laurie



To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Re: To tell the dancer from the dance

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Well of course you need to specify the tuning for tablature.
(Muse will handle *any* tuning, including balalaika where two strings are on
the same pitch and left-handed guitar played right-handed where the treble
string is nearest the ceiling).  The only interesting question is "how much
of this, if any, should be encoded in the ABC.  I take the position that
where the tablature was entered directly the string or fret should be
recorded.  Where it was generated automatically there's no need.  Often you
want to give either the program or the player a hint saying "play *this*
note on string 4" and let him/her/it figure the rest out.  Rather like
bowing.  You don't put a bow direction on every note.  And, yes I generate
G;4 for G on string 4.

It could theoretically be input to the tablature generation program but it's
much more likely to be output.

It applies to not just one instrument but to a fairly large family,
including unfretted instruments such as violin.
(guitar, 5 string banjo, tenor banjo, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki,
balalaika, bass guitar, violin, viola, cello, double bass, viola da gamba,
cittern, vihuelha, ud, p'i-p'a, gekkin, sitar, vina, tampura, lute and no
doublt many others).

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 8:27 PM
Subject: [abcusers] Re: To tell the dancer from the dance


Phil Taylor wrote

>If Laurie wants to write
>something like "^F9S3"e in his music to indicate that the note is to be
played
>at a particular point on the fingerboard I don't see why he shouldn't.

Fingerboard of what instrument?  Banjo? Lute? Cittern? Balalaika? Guitar
tuned DADGAD?  Players of all these might want to use the same idea and then
you have to specify not just the instrument but the tuning as well.  Getting
a wee bit specific.  OK, pipers have done the same but at least K:HP says
loud and clear "This is a highland pipe tune" right from the start.  If they
are only interested in exchanging tunes between themselves, that's fine.  It
doesn't cause problems for anyone else.

More to the point, this subject came up a while ago and Laurie gave an
example of his notation -

>i.e. a3;4 means play the a on the 4th string

   claiming precedence for the use of the semicolon over somebody else's
suggested use.  The ascii character set is a limited resource so if people
start laying claim to characters for narrow usages we could start running
out.  At the time I suggested using the same notation for English concertina
cross fingering and several people were quick to tell me this was a bad
idea.
 For those who didn't realise it at the time, I was joking.  I would say the
same about u and v for fiddle bowing (and I play fiddle) but it's been done
now so it's too late. [chords] may not be relevant to all instruments but
they are relevant to a great many, not just one.

>I can see that such hints could be
>useful to a program which generated tablature from abc.

If you are simply using it as input for a tablature generation programme
fine, but if you are using it to distribute tunes to fellow musicians
regardless of how they are going to use them they are just more useless
clutter.

Bryan Creer

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] The F > F (and F > F2) problems

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I play in two bands.  In one of them we tend to play hornpipes as though
they were written in 12/8 (indeed I've heard other musicians call some of
the tunes "12/8 hornpipes".  In the other, one of the musicians tends to
play *everything* dotted and hornpipes very dotted - at least 3:1.  It's
very hard to keep an even tempo until you reach an agreement on how dotted
it is.  Otherwise each of you keeps hearing the odd note from the other
fellow coming in ahead of you (the late notes get drowned and don't notice)
and the whole thing runs downhill and speeds up.  That band plays for a
display dance team and the dancers very soon let us know!

I know this isn't very relevant to ABC but I thought you might find it
interesting.
Laurie
(Retires into the corner mumbling into his beard.  Remembers that he's
shaved his beard off.  Hides deeper in the corner).

- Original Message -
From: "James Allwright" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:13 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The F > F (and F > F2) problems


On Sat 25 May 2002 at 09:39AM -0400, Laura Conrad wrote:
>
> Actually, abc2midi formerly assumed R:Hornpipe whenever you used
> "F > F".  And then assumed a different split of time, which was
> appropriate for the way someone somewhere plays hornpipes.
>
> And when the inconsistency between abc2midi and the standard was
> pointed out, the author of abc2midi decided that consistency was more
> important than correctness, so he provided a workaround, rather than a
> fix.

The inconsistency is deliberate. The point is that when you play a
hornpipe or anything else with dotted rhythm (or swing, or whatever
you want to call it), keeping a 3:1 ratio is rather harder than
keeping a 2:1 ratio and doesn't really add much musically apart from
a certain pedantic pleasure in knowing that you are playing exactly
what your notation says. This is why abc2midi makes the assumption
that a>b is meant to be played as a 2:1 ratio. I think this is in
accordance with the original spirit of '>' even if this is not spelt
out in the standard.

The effect of R:Hornpipe in abc2midi is to introduce '>' between 1/8
notes so that a piece written as a reel will come out sounding like
a hornpipe.

Because there is this aethetically displeasing discrepancy between
notation and performance, I have taken the view that '>' is a
function to be used only in a very specific setting and trying to
generalize it for other uses is courting trouble.

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] Re: To tell the dancer from the dance

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Well, I think that an annotation that says that something is supposed to be
played on bagpipes (no, I don't have any) would be *at* *least* as important
musically as one that says it's to be played like a hornpipe.  Now there's
nothing to stop you from playing a bagpipe tune on a concertina, just as
there's nothing to stop you playing a hornpipe as a reel (I gather that's
called a "breakdown"), in a different key and with some of the notes left
out - but it will be different from the writer's written idea.

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 10:33 AM
Subject: [abcusers] Re: To tell the dancer from the dance


"Strike the concertina's melancholy string!
Blow the spirit-stirring harp like anything!"

W.S.Gilbert

Laurie Griffiths said -

>An instruction to play a note on fret 9 of the G string instead of the open
>E string is musically relevant.

My concertina doesn't have E or G strings and I'm not playing top E on the G
string of my fiddle for anyone.

>A difference between two pieces of notation is musically relevant if and
>only if it means they should sound different.

This and the example imply that the instrument being played is relevant.
Wouldn't it be best to exclude instrument specific notation from abc?  It
could get very messy if you don't.

Bryan Creer

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] To tell the dancer from the dance

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Phil commented "The criterion of musical relevance is certainly something we
should consider when discussing extensions to the language, but I don't
think it's of overriding importance."

I agree.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] The F > F (and F > F2) problems

[Laurie (ukonline)]

My vote is
1. Deprecated
2. Transfer fixed time to keep total constant (sorry Phil)
I have no idea what Muse does - I kinds hope it screams "murder!".
L.
- Original Message -
From: "Phil Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 2:13 PM
Subject: [abcusers] The F > F (and F > F2) problems


Laura wrote:

>abc2ly enables you to get both printed and played music from abc.  I
>haven't fixed the ^F-|F problem yet, although it's on my list, but it
>certainly doesn't have the  "F > F" problem.

What's the F > F problem?  Is that due to abc2midi misinterpreting
R:Hornpipe to mean some other split of time between the two notes?

Another problem I've come across with broken rhythms is that when you
use it between notes of different lengths the result seems to be
different in different programs.  BarFly follows the standard by
dotting one note and halving the other, but this gives a different
total time duration from the original pair of notes:

F > F2 is interpreted as F3/ F which adds up to 2.5 rather than 3.

It's clear that some other programs do it differently, transferring a
fixed amount of time between the notes to keep the total constant so:

F > F2 is interpreted as F3/ F3/ or as F3 F adding up to 3.

Which is correct?

At the moment I advise users to avoid using broken rhythms between
unequal notes on the grounds that the result is unpredictable - if
in doubt write it out in full.

Phil Taylor


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] To tell the dancer from the dance

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Frank Evil Grin Nordberg challenged "Can anybody come up with a clear and
consise definition (in twenty words
or less) of the difference between musically relevant and purely notational
features?"

A difference between two pieces of notation is musically relevant if and
only if it means they should sound different.
(20 words)

Thus writing in a different key and inserting accidentals to correct is not
musically relevant.

Writing something in bass clef rather than treble clef with many legers is
not musically relevant.

Putting guitar chords above the staff rather than below is not musically
relevant.

An instruction to play a note on fret 9 of the G string instead of the open
E string is musically relevant.

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Percussion notation...

[Laurie (ukonline)]

"Atte Andre Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote"I don't care how my abc playes,
and looking back on the descussion about ^f-|f a couple of months ago
obviously abc2midi is only to be considered a toy, so I guess the rest of
the comunity feels the same as me..."


abc2midi is not the only application that makes sound from ABC files*!*

My customers find that "proof-listening" is *much* more reliable than
proof-reading and the ability of Muse to make some noises that represent
what's on the screen aids enormously in eliminating errors.

In our band we used to have hand-written music which was full of misprints
that we only found out about when a stand-in musician played what was
written on the page!  When we put it all on the computer we eliminated
almost all of them.  It doesn't have to be a wonderfully impressive
performance to achieve this, indeed I almost don't want Muse to make
wonderful noises - I want it to help *people* to make wonderful noises.

To make a visual analogy, the music is a picture and the computer gives a
line drawing, but that is enough to show that Mary's left foot on the end of
her right arm.

It matters!  Others do care.
If you are playing with applications that don't play, may your eyes be sharp
and your notes on pitch!

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Percussion notation...

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> On Fri, 24 May 2002, Laurie (ukonline) wrote:

> > Well as Muse already has diamond, cross square (oh, and the usual
ellipse)
> > for note heads, the answer is about minus three years for the
formatting,
> > GUI editing, printing, etc.

> How does the abc look for this in muse?

It doesn't!  Muse has its own format which has supported these things for
quite a while.

There is no point in trying to import it from ABC because there is no ABC
out there that has it - i.e. no "official" standard and no de facto standard
either and nobody notices the lack in Muse because there is no body of files
for people to try.

There is no point in exporting it from ABC because there's no place to
export it to.  If you want to export it to anopther copy of Muse then you
can do that much better in Muse format (which will remember a load of other
stuff about fonts, layout, view, staffs, tablature too).

If there is an official or a de facto standard, then so long as it's not too
peculiar, an hour or two of work should see Muse able to import it or export
it.  For instance, putting * in front of the note would be easy.

However that would give something that could *look* like some sort of
percussion score.  To make it play like one is another matter.

Incidentally I see in Tom Gerou and Linda Lusk's "Essential Dictionary of
Music Notation" that non-pitched notes are written as x for a basic duration
of 1/4 note (crotchet) and shorter but diamond for 1/2 and longer.  (By
"basic duration" I mean before considering dots, triplets etc).  Their work
seems to be as definitive as any (meaning not definitive at all, but a good
starting point).

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Percussion notation...

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I think I'd be in favour of something that went in K: to say "what follows
are to be interpreted as percussion symbols".  It seems to me that what the
key signature does is to define how the following notes are to be
interpreted (this one is sharp, that one is not and so forth) and it's
merely a generalisation of this to say "this one is a floor-tom, that one is
a cymbal".

So my suggestion is
K:Percussion
or if you prefer
K:clef=Perc
or
K:Clef=P
and then everything is to be interpreted as percussion until further notice.
Players should make banging noises, formatters should use x for noteheads,
transposers should have a great time (*some* percussion is tuned!) and so
on.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Percussion notation...

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> There isn't much use of 'x' as a non-printing rest (yet).

There's enough that I implmented the damn thing and I don't want to start
unimplementing it and making exceptions.

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Percussion notation...

[Laurie (ukonline)]

> Hmmm ...  Y'know; that might not be too difficult.  For the "x"  note
> heads, it would have been nice if 'x' hadn't been already taken up as
> an invisible rest; it would have made an intuitively-correct modifier
> for this purpose.  Maybe we could use '*' for this purpose, so the *e
> would be an e with an 'x' for the note  head.   Either  clef=drum  or
> clef=perc  might be good ways to show the clef.  I wonder how long it
> would take to hack this into your typical abc2ps formatter?

Well as Muse already has diamond, cross square (oh, and the usual ellipse)
for note heads, the answer is about minus three years for the formatting,
GUI editing, printing, etc.

For the ABC, if people agree on the syntax it should be about an hour or two
of work.

For the playing - that might be a mess.  Is there a *generally* *agreed*
meaning for these things? or is each drummer going to want it to look and
play *his* (or her) way?

Laurie


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] äÌÑ ÄÉÒÅËÔÏÒÁ ... WQKOIKFYMT

[Laurie (ukonline)]

The title appears to be nonsense, the rest is Russian with the odd English
word.  I only had a quick look, but I think it was advertising mass-mailing
tools.  The first thing after the heading said "Buy our disk.  You will get
a truly  marketing mechanism."

The  represents Moshnyeyshee, a word not in my dictionary.
Whether it's derived from "Moshyennik" (a swindler) I know not.  It went on
"3300 English language addresses." 



I would like to add my voice to the "subscribers only" policy, if it isn't
too hard to implement.  If we were to vote - better make sure only
subscribers can vote!

Laurie.


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Chords

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Muse will play them.  (Muse is not alone in this, in fact I think there are
lots of programs that will).
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Karl Dallas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 10:46 AM
Subject: RE: [abcusers] Chords


Very interesting. Is there any way I can get my PC to play the chords
(strange or otherwise) in an abc tune? Abc2win seems to ignore them.

--

Karl Dallas, HoustonMedia
Please note new email address:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Tel: +44(0)771 980 5907

Publishers of the jTechUpdate (Java), RUXPerienced (Windows XP), KD on
jazz and KD on folk mailing lists.

. To subscribe send email with 'subscribe' in the Subject field to
. jTechUpdate: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. RUXPerienced: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. HardwareDaily: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. SoftwareDaily: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. KD on jazz: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. KD on folk: [EMAIL PROTECTED]



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of John Walsh
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 11:57 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Chords

Henrik Norbeck writes:

>Yes, but even if you set "strangeness" in AbcMus to 100% at least
>one of the notes in the chord must also be in the beat or bar it is
>set to, so for instance (in key of G) |GABG| could only have the
>following chords (I think):
>G major, E minor, C major, B minor, D major, D minor, A major,
>A minor, F major, F# minor, C minor, Eb major, G minor, B major,
>E major, G# minor (the last ones are indeed pretty strange though)
>But it could not have an F minor chord set to it, since none of the
>notes in that chord (F Ab c) are in the music it should be set to.
>

I play the pipes, so, apart from the elementary
chords one can get from the regulators, harmony is Someone Else's
Problem; and something that seems ordinary to someone
else might seem strange to me.  But it's more the overall sound
than the individual chords.
When you crank up the strangeness on a simple Irish polka
and it comes out sounding like a fugitive from the Rites
of Spring, what else can you call it?  I'm still grinning.

Obligatory abc content:  The R: field is only supposed
to go in the header, according to the 1.6 spec.  Now that some
playback programs use this field for their stress programs, I think it
should be allowed in the tune.  By coincidence, the tunes I
checked before
posting this were in a medley: slide/polka/slip jig/polka, a bit of
a joke, the joke being that the rhythm changes a couple of bars
before the tune changes, e.g. the last two bars of the slide are
in 2/4, the last two bars of the polka are in 9/8, etc.  I'd like
to use the R: field there to get the rhythm change to sound right
on playback.

Cheers,
John Walsh

P.S. For those of you who don't have Abcmus and wonder what we're
talking
about, (hope you don't mind, Henrik) here's Tommy Reck's Polka, with
chords set by Henrik's Cyberbacker, 2 chords/bar and strangeness = 100%.
(100% is overkill---you can get a number of different effects at much
smaller settings, which is practical, since it suggests alternate chords
to use---but we're testing the limits here.)  Listen three times before
making up your mind.  But beware: if you listen to it too much, the
ordinary accompaniment may begin to sound vapid.

X:4
T:Tommy Reck's
R:polka
Z:J Walsh
S:T. Reck
M:2/4
K:D
"A#"A2d2 "D#"fgfe|"D#m"d2F2 "A#"A3d|"A#m"c2E2 "G#m"G3B|"A#"A2D2
"F"F2A2|\
"A#"A2d2 "D#"fgfe|"D#m"d2F2 "A#"A3d|"F"c2A2 "D#"G2E2|"A#"F2D2 "A#"D4:|
"A#"f2d2 "A#"d4|"G#m"c2B2 "G#m"B4|"G#m"e2B2 "G#m"c2B2|"F"B2A2 "F"F2A2|\
"A#"f2d2 "A#"d4|"G#m"c2B2 "G#m"B4|"G#m"B2e2 "A#m"B2c2|"F"d6 z2:|

For comparison, here it is with strangeness = 0%, still 2 chords/bar.
It's actually the same tune...

X:4
T:Tommy Reck's
R:polka
S:T. Reck
M:2/4
K:D
"D"A2d2 "D"fgfe|"D"d2F2 "D"A3d|"A"c2E2 "G"G3B|"D"A2D2 "D"F2A2|\
"D"A2d2 "D"fgfe|"D"d2F2 "D"A3d|"F#m"c2A2 "Em"G2E2|"D"F2D2 "D"D4:|
"D"f2d2 "D"d4|"F#m"c2B2 "Bm"B4|"Em"e2B2 "F#m"c2B2|"Bm"B2A2 "D"F2A2|\
"D"f2d2 "D"d4|"F#m"c2B2 "Bm"B4|"Em"B2e2 "Bm"B2c2|"D"d6 z2:|


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



To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] jcabc2ps and mystery breton tune

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Oh, Lord! I never realised that Bretons had been treated like that!
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Quiniou Rene" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] jcabc2ps and mystery breton tune


Kerfank means "camp of mud". The following web sites describe (in
French) the historic episode the song of Tri Yann is about.

http://www.bzh.com/keltia/galleg/histoire/bretagne/emsav-1/conlie.htm
http://www.chez.com/buan1/avproposconlie.html

René

John Chambers wrote:
>
> | 2) mystery breton tune
> | the Breton band Tri Yann called it "Kerfank 1870"
>
> Hmmm ...  I wonder what that means?  I don't know any Breton at  all.
> Maybe I'll put that name in my file, though.
>
> 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


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb

[Laurie (ukonline)]

That's what I thought!
- Original Message -
From: "Wil Macaulay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 11:36 PM
Subject: RE: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb



Actually, there's a substantial community of Cape Breton fiddlers in Boston,
so lots of strathspeys get played there.

wil
-Original Message-
From: Laurie (ukonline)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 4/16/2002 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb

Dishonest answer:  Yes - but then you have to mess about with it until
it
plays well on the fiddle.  And it seemed to me that some people might
have
already done that work!

Honest answer:  I don't have *any* strathspeys in my repertoire (I live
in
the South of England, that's a long way from Scotland.  Musically,
Boston,
MA might be closer).
L.

- Original Message -
From: "Laura Conrad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb


>>>>> "Laurie" == laurie griffiths  writes:

Laurie> I need a good strathspey to play on the fiddle in the key of
B
flat major.
Laurie> Any suggestions?

Transpose whatever strathspey you like into the key of Bb?


--
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


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


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Dishonest answer:  Yes - but then you have to mess about with it until it
plays well on the fiddle.  And it seemed to me that some people might have
already done that work!

Honest answer:  I don't have *any* strathspeys in my repertoire (I live in
the South of England, that's a long way from Scotland.  Musically, Boston,
MA might be closer).
L.

- Original Message -
From: "Laura Conrad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb


> "Laurie" == laurie griffiths  writes:

Laurie> I need a good strathspey to play on the fiddle in the key of B
flat major.
Laurie> Any suggestions?

Transpose whatever strathspey you like into the key of Bb?


--
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


To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

[abcusers] Wanted: a good strathspey for fiddle in Bb

[Laurie (ukonline)]

I need a good strathspey to play on the fiddle in the key of B flat major.

Any suggestions?

Laurie

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Buddha Buck wrote off-list (the best place) to the effect that

One thing I hear from your comment is that the MS Apps folks had access to
pre-release API's to base their apps on.

Which meant that the MS App folks got a head-start on development on the
new versions


and I replied (off-list)

Correct!  I believe that to be the valid complaint.  It was 2-edged (the
early, changing versions of OLE were a nightmare, they broke schedules, they
broke marriages and they broke people) but still valid.  I have been out
since '96 so I don't know if it still goes on.

I would add that I personally think that the conspiracy theories are tosh
and that businesses are *supposed* to compete but people don't like it when
they win.  Most businesses play as close to the rules as they can and
sometimes they step over the mark.  In the case of the Netscape thing, MS
was badly frightened and felt it was fighting for its life, it was so far
behind.

I don't think that big monopolies are a good thing, but the nature of the
economics of scale in software tends to produce them and we need new law
which we haven't got (neither in the US nor elsewhere).  Enough.

I'm concerned that this is a non-ABC thread so I'll stop here and only reply
further off-line, but I thought I should reply to this lest I be seen as an
MS PR bod (which I am not!).

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Buddha Buck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



One thing I hear from your comment is that the MS Apps folks had access to
pre-release API's to base their apps on.



Which meant that the MS App folks got a head-start on development on the
new versions



- Original Message -
From: "Gary J Sibio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 7:01 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically


I'm responding tomore than just your post here so not everything here
applies to what you wrote.

At 11:49 PM 4/14/02 +0100, you wrote:
>You seemed to miss the point.  I *was* in MS.
>Which part of MS were you in?


1) I did miss your point that you worked for MS.

2) You were speaking of interfaces; I was speaking of API calls.

3) Someone asked about evidence

3a) the Justice Department suit. They recommended splitting up Microsoft
because they were able to use code in the operating system to their benefit
which was not generally made available to other developers.

3b) Anybody who writes code for Windows knows that there are undocumented
API calls because they have been uncovered by individuals who then spread
the word about them via the Internet, books or journals. While Microsoft
recommends against their use because they can be changed without notice. Of
couse that does not apply to MS who knows exactly how and when these
changes will take place.

4) Someone griped that this is an ABC group and not a MS-bashing group
which, to a point, is a valid issue and this is the last I intend to post
on this topic. However, it is also for people who write ABC software - if
it wasn't for the software, ABC would be pretty useless, wouldn't it - and
have to deal with the fact that MS does have its little tricks.

The upshot is, if you like the way MS operates, that's your business but
don't try to convince me they deal evenhandedly with third-party
developers. I've been screwed over by them too often to buy it.
Unfortunately, market realities demand that MS has to be dealt with.



Gary J. Sibio

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] The virtues of handling music graphically

[Laurie (ukonline)]

You seemed to miss the point.  I *was* in MS.
Which part of MS were you in?
Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Gary J Sibio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically


At 10:38 AM 4/14/02 +0100, you wrote:
>(During my time in the Windows Systems group in MS I never came across any
>interfaces that were intended to be secret.  What I

Microsoft keeps the secret stuff for itself. Most programmers (that is, the
ones that don't work for MSFT) don't know about them because they are
secret. This gives MSFT a distinct advantage and why MSFT should have been
split up.



Gary J. Sibio

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] The virtues of handling music graphically

[Laurie (ukonline)]

FWIW Muse does not use any "secret", or undocumented parts of the Windows
interface.

(During my time in the Windows Systems group in MS I never came across any
interfaces that were intended to be secret.  What I did find were places
where an app had been developed to an early-version interface that we in
Windows had thought better of and replaced in the released product by
something that worked better.  Meanwhile the guys in the apps group didn't
feel much like rewriting *their* stuff just because we were too stupid to
have all our second thoughts first.  So the thing would be left in but
undocumented).  Of course, there may have been secrets that I wasn't told
(almost "by definition of secret").

L.
- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically


Rick writes:
| "Laurie (ukonline)" wrote:
|
| > No, sorry - no Linux version.
| >
| > (You mean Linux doesn't have a Windows emulation subsystem!!)
|
| Shudder!!!  (To the backdrop of loud wailing and gnashing of teeth!!)  ;-)

Well, actually, it does have several.  Wine and Lindows come to mind.
They  both  do  have  limitations,  though,  related to the fact that
Windows' inner workings are secret. There are Microsoft products that
use  undocumented  parts of the OS, and it's real hard to do a proper
emulation of things that you aren't permitted to know anything about.

One of the linux news stories lately has been Microsoft's attempt  to
squash  Lindows  by  burying  them  with legal costs.  MS claims that
"Lindows" is a trademark  infringement.   Supposedly  it  is  similar
enough  to  "Windows"  to  cause  confusion  on  the  part  of  their
customers.  This has, naturally, led to a lot of humor.   Suggestions
that  it's true; MS's customers generally aren't smart enough to tell
the difference.  And Microsoft is also filing  suit  against  several
major  real  estate firms for selling houses that contain windows not
licensed by Microsoft.  That sort of thing.

There's also a cute followup suit from the  BE  OS  people,  claiming
that Windows ME infringes their name. After all, "ME" differs in only
one letter from "BE". They point to the Lindows suit as evidence that
Microsoft itself agrees with the principle.

There's some strange humor in these circles ...


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] The virtues of handling music graphically

[Laurie (ukonline)]

No, sorry - no Linux version.

(You mean Linux doesn't have a Windows emulation subsystem!!)

L.
- Original Message -
From: "Ulf Bro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2002 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically


Am Samstag, 13. April 2002 01:05 schrieb Laurie (ukonline):
> Nice advert.

:-)

> the USA.  I suppose while we're doing adverts I should add how it can also
> translate ABC into guitar tablature (or mandolin, balalaika bouzouki etc).

I have mentioned exactly this to the co-mando (mandoline players' email
list).
You haven't written a Linux version of Muse, have you?

Ulf
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] The virtues of handling music graphically

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Nice advert.

I guess I should "remind" people that Muse is a graphical music editor that
imports and exports ABC and costs only £20 which is around $35 for those in
the USA.  I suppose while we're doing adverts I should add how it can also
translate ABC into guitar tablature (or mandolin, balalaika bouzouki etc).
Plays, prints, is very easy to use, has a comprehensive help file, can write
scores with up to 8 parallel parts (V: etc in ABC) which you can arrange
either one or two per staff.  Supports the four clefs (good for violas,
trombones etc) Transposes (good for saxophones, singers etc.), supports
guitar chords played above a capo, can handle any tuning when generating
guitar tablature (or generating 5-line notation from tablature), gives you
30 days free trial and some function (such as displaying ABC on the screen
as a 5-line score) permanently free, is a small, quick download (written in
C, shunning MFC etc to avoid bloat), fast screen drawing (written in C not
Java), I could go on, but I guess I already have been.

Apologies for boring those of you who knew all this already.

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: "Doug Rogers/Yowza Software" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 11:00 PM
Subject: [abcusers] The virtues of handling music graphically

...

I guess I'm writing this to remind those who don't that for a pretty small
investment (less than $100 for MusEdit and several other notation
packages)

...

To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html

Re: [abcusers] V:

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Yes, Muse supports this too, and has done for some years, not sure how many.
the parts print together in pairs with the notes vertically aligned so that
simultaneous notes are below each other.

(Actually this piece seems to have thrown up a minor bug - on the harmony
line, the first staff has the key sig and time sig after the initial repeat.
Normally these things work just fine.)

Muse doesn't care whether you do all of one part then all of the next or
alternating like this.

Laurie


- Original Message -
From: "John Chambers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] V:


Anton Keijzer writes:
| To introduce myself: I have an interest in the usability of ASCII file
formats
| for music composition by blind musicians.
|
| My question:
| In the case of the proposed V: extension to the abc file format, is it
proposed
| to be legal notation to have more than 2 occurences of, for example, V:1,
for
| different segments of the one voice? It might, in my opinion, make abc
text
| more readable, in particular, for blind composers. This would be like the
| bar-over-bar layout of braille music notation.

Some (but not all) ABC programs do this already.  For example, here's
a nice Swedish waltz tune with a harmony line. It's laid out like the
printed page, with the staffs in the correct order. With abc2ps, this
works just fine. Note the date; this has worked for at least 5 years.

X: 1
T: H\"okpers vals
C: Lars H\"okper
O: Sv\"ardsj\"o, Sweden
Z: 1997 by John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
N: Harmony by John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
K: Dm
V: 1
|: A2 \
| "Dm"d3 efa | "Gm"g3 fed | "A7"^c2 A3G | "Dm"F4 D2 \
| "Dm"F2 EF AG | "C"E4 c2 | "G"=B2 GA Bd | "A7"A4 ^c2 |
V: 2
|: z2 \
| "Dm"F3 GA2 | "Gm"B3 AGF | "A7"E4 ^c2 | "Dm"d4 A2 \
| "Dm"d2 A2 F2 | "C"c2 G2 E2 | "G"D4 D2 | "A7"^C2 D2 E2|
V: 1
| "Dm"d3 efa | "Gm"g3 fed | "A7"^c2 A3G | "Dm"F4 "A7"E2 \
| "Dm"D2 ^CD EF | "Gm"AG G3E | "A7"F2 E2 D^C | "Dm"D4 :|
V: 2
| "Dm"F3 GA2 | "Gm"B3 AGF | "A7"E4 ^c2 | "Dm"d4 A2 \
| "Dm"F4 A2 | "Gm"d4 B2 | "A7"A4 AG | "Dm"F4 :|
V: 1
|: A2 \
| "Dm"AF FD FA | AF FD FA | A2 G2 zF | "A7"E4 G2 \
| GE E^C  EG | GE E^C  EG | G2 A2 zE | "Dm"F4 A2 |
V: 2
|: f2 \
| "Dm"fd AF Ad | fd AF Ad | f2 e2 zd | "A7"^c4 e2  \
| e^c AE Ac | e^c AE Ac | e2 f2 zg | "Dm"a4 f2 |
V: 1
| "Dm"AF FD FA | AF FD FA | "D7"A2 d3c | "Gm"B4 B2 \
| B2 c2 zB | "Dm"A4 F2 | "A7"GF E2 D^C | "Dm"D4 :|
V: 2
| "Dm"fd AF Ad | fd AF Ad | "D7"^f2 g3 a | "Gm"g4 g2 \
| g2 a2 zg | "Dm"f4 d2 | "A7"^c2 AB AG | "Dm"F4 :|

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] Complex Chords in ABC

[Laurie (ukonline)]

Did I miss it as it flew by or are you going to tell us what the proposed
standard (or STANDARD) meaning for D/A etc. should be?

My own guess is that D/A means "any combination of the notes D F# and A in
any octaves, so long as it contains at least one of each note and the lowest
note of all of them is an A in some octave".

For instance on a guitar in standard tuning I might play D/A as (fret
numbers from bass to treble) X 0 0 2 3 2 giving notes something like A,, D,
A, D ^F (yes, I know, the guitar is a transposing instrument and, shame!!
ABC doesn't support transposing instruments.  Argue amongst yourselves as to
which octave the notes really are) but equally well I could play 5 5 7 7 7 X
giving the same set of notes but a different sound or X 0 7 7 7 X giving A,,
A, D ^F

I suspect that an accordionist would simply press the button that gave a D
major chord without too much regard to what notes it really generated and
simultaneously press an single note bass A button.  I suspect a melodionist
would just do their best somehow.

A more interesting guitar example is E7/E which could be any of (frets
again) at least
0 2 0 1 0 0 (easy but boring)
0 2 2 1 3 0 (better)
0 7 6 7 0 0 (nice!)
0 7 6 7 0 7 (ah, yes!!)
0 7 9 7 9 7 (not really worth the effort)
0 7 9 9 9 10
0 7 0 9 0 0
x x 2 1 3 0
x 7 6 7 0 0
0 7 6 4 3 0  (let's see you play that in a hurry)
0 11 12 9 0 0
0 11 0 9 0 0
(and there are many more).

Is this what is "very clear" to you - or is it something different?

Laurie

- Original Message -
From: "Mike Whitaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Complex Chords in ABC


On Monday 08 April 2002 11:13 am, you wrote:
> > A chord sequence written A E/A D/A A  means something very
> > clear to me *exactly* as written.
>
> I'm *guessing* it means
>
>[Acea] [A,EGBe] [A,DFAd] [Acea]
>
> in a key signature of three sharps, but should I (or a piece
> of software generating such an expansion) have to guess?

Which is WHY we propose a STANDARD.
--
Mike Whitaker| Work: +44 1733 766619 | Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
System Architect | Fax:  +44 1733 348287 | Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CricInfo Ltd | GSM:  +44 7971 977375 | Web: http://www.cricinfo.com/
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] Complex Chords in ABC

[Laurie (ukonline)]

And what exactly does it mean to you?

(Faced with this, Muse would currently just interpret the chord up to the
first thing outside its limited syntax, so E/A is played as E, D/A is played
as D).

Laurie
- Original Message -
From: "Mike Whitaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2002 10:23 PM
Subject: Re: [abcusers] Complex Chords in ABC


> C/D is actually Dsus7(9) without 5th, but
> D/C is actually D7 with the 7th in the bass
>
> I don't think it would make any sense to try to get player programs to
> understand slash-chords, but I don't think they should be forbidden.
> Band In A Box only plays a single note in the bass and the simple chord
> in the "right hand" when stuff like this happens. That's probably the
> best way for player programs to treat this, anyways.

And I quote: "Membership in the chord cabal should be voluntary,  but
anyone who ever says "Who needs it?" should be summarily evicted." *grin*

I need this. Exactly as notated. A chord sequence written A E/A D/A A
means something very clear to me *exactly* as written.
--
Mike Whitaker| Work: +44 1733 766619 | Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
System Architect | Fax:  +44 1733 348287 | Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CricInfo Ltd | GSM:  +44 7971 977375 | Web: http://www.cricinfo.com/
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