RE: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
They are absolute. Thus, no matter what key you are in, _e means E flat. - Eric -Original Message- From: Erik Ronström [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] What the accidentals =, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =e means e flat in Bb major)? To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
What the accidentals =, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =e means e flat in Bb major)? Erik Ronström Nokia 5510 looks weird sounds great. Go to http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/nokia/ discover and win it! The competition ends 16 th of December 2001. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
On Fri 07 Dec 2001 at 11:57AM +, Erik Ronström wrote: What the accidentals =, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =e means e flat in Bb major)? Accidentals are absolute, which is how they are in standard stave notation. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
Erik Ronstr=F6m writes: | What the accidentals =3D, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means | e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =3De means e flat | in Bb major)? They're absolute, just as in conventional music notation. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
What the accidentals =, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =e means e flat in Bb major)? Accidentals in abc work exactly in the same way as in modern staff notation, that is _e means e flat, even if the e was sharp or flat already as the result of the key signature or an accidental earlier in the bar. Accidentals apply only to the note they precede and any other instances of that note later in the same bar, and not to the same note in a different octave. (Note though that the early music people prefer accidentals to apply only to the following note, leaving any later instance of the note unchanged, and some programs may permit this as an option.) Phil Taylor To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
| Erik Ronstr=F6m writes: | | What the accidentals =3D, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means | | e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =3De means e flat | | in Bb major)? | | They're absolute, just as in conventional music notation. Just out of curiosity, are there any musical traditions/styles that use a relative (or cumulative) approach? I've never seen any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I'd imagine that this could make the music difficult to read at times. You'd have to stop, backup, and add up the accidentals to figure out how to play a note. In a measure with many accidentals, the capacity of a mere human's short-term memory could be easily overflow. This seems somewhat related to the old question of the persistence of accidentals. Current conventional practice is that accidentals last to the next bar line, but there are several musical styles that use the only the one note rule. This is true for European music before 1600 or so, and also for much modern music (especially atonal). It makes sense in these styles. The early European music didn't use bar lines, so until the next bar line didn't work. The modern music is too difficult to read if accidentals have persistence. It might be interesting to learn of a type of music where cumulative accidentals make sense, because this makes the music easier to read. Does anyone know of any? To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
|| What the accidentals =3D, ^, _ mean? Are they absolute (e g _e means || e flat) or are they in relation to the key (e g =3De means e flat || in Bb major)? | They're absolute, just as in conventional music notation. Just out of curiosity, are there any musical traditions/styles that use a relative (or cumulative) approach? I've never seen any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It's quite common in early music for a sharp-turned-45-degrees sign to mean either a sharp or a naturalization of a flat. This seems somewhat related to the old question of the persistence of accidentals. Current conventional practice is that accidentals last to the next bar line, but there are several musical styles that use the only the one note rule. This is true for European music before 1600 or so, and also for much modern music (especially atonal). Looking up the first two atonal scores that came to hand, neither of them do this. Robert Crawford's Variations for Recorder and Piano uses the ordinary to-the-next-barline rule, and Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra uses a third rule, every note gets an accidental on its first occurrence in a bar, and that accidental stays in force until there is a change in pitch (there are a lot of repeated notes in the score). I think Webern did the same, but can't find a score at the moment. === http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ === To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Sharps 'n flats
| Just out of curiosity, are there any musical traditions/styles that | use a relative (or cumulative) approach? I've never seen any, but | that doesn't mean they don't exist. | | It's quite common in early music for a sharp-turned-45-degrees sign to | mean either a sharp or a naturalization of a flat. Yeah; that's an intermediate form. Before the natural sign was widely used, it does seem to have been common to use flats and sharps to cancel each other. But I don't think I've seen any cumulative use of this. For example, if you had B flat in the key signature, would anyone have written in a flat to get a double flat? I've never seen this, but I wouldn't be too surprised, either. | This seems somewhat related to the old question of the persistence of | accidentals. Current conventional practice is that accidentals last | to the next bar line, but there are several musical styles that use | the only the one note rule. This is true for European music before | 1600 or so, and also for much modern music (especially atonal). | | Looking up the first two atonal scores that came to hand, neither of | them do this. Robert Crawford's Variations for Recorder and Piano uses | the ordinary to-the-next-barline rule, and Schoenberg's Variations for | Orchestra uses a third rule, every note gets an accidental on its | first occurrence in a bar, and that accidental stays in force until | there is a change in pitch (there are a lot of repeated notes in the | score). I think Webern did the same, but can't find a score at the | moment. That's yet another scheme. I don't have any feeling for how common any of these is. I've seen it, but I haven't played all that much modern, atonal music. It's probably only useful when it's useful, that is, when there's a serious problem with keeping track of the accidentals in a measure. But this can be ameliorated by cutting the bar length in half, so I'd guess it's not all that important. In any case, it seems reasonable that ABC's default behavior should be to say that accidentals are absolute, and persist until the next bar line. ABC tools with support for other styles (such as Medieval music, 4-line staves, etc.) would presumably have options to control such behavior. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
