Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Jack Campin wrote:
You need to separate the two layers of "ABC intended to represent
the music itself" and "ABC intended to represent staff notation for
the music" somehow.  Changing a note or a chord is in the first
layer; using a "y" to make the two halves of a bar more visually
separate than the program wants them to be is in the second.
Like HTML/CSS where the HTML provides the content and CSS the layout? 
That's quite a good idea, isn't it? Abc player software doesn't need to 
know about spacers, so they shouldn't be in the tune.

After all, being able to separate the layout from the music is one of 
the reasons why I started using abc in the first place. I was fed up 
with graphical musical notation software that forced me to place 
everything manually with ugly and unprofessional looking sheet music as 
a consequence.

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and
oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital
ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jack Campin]

>> Usually, I want the program to just decide where to put the line
>> breaks, with a few rare exceptions.
> The solution I'm coming up with on the next release of Music Publisher
> is to provide an editing screen where changes can be made to abc file
> before use. And including a "reflow" command for bars so that it will
> fit on whatever page and stave size you have defined.

Could I suggest that if you do this, you keep the original?  Maybe as
a commented-out appendix to the tune.  If the auther (me for example)
cares about the source layout, they're not going to appreciate having
to set it all out again after your program has clobbered it.

BarFly has something like that, but makes a new copy of the tune as
it does it.  I wouldn't use the feature if it didn't do something
equivalent in practice to that.

You need to separate the two layers of "ABC intended to represent
the music itself" and "ABC intended to represent staff notation for
the music" somehow.  Changing a note or a chord is in the first
layer; using a "y" to make the two halves of a bar more visually
separate than the program wants them to be is in the second.

-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
 * food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro".
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jack Campin]

[abcm2ps's !...! construct]
>>  So, why not pick a symbol other than "!" for the latter usage?
>> "*" seems ideal, and quite logical, too: in emails, IRC, etc.,
>> it is commonly used to boldface or emote something.
> My first reaction is that" ! " is better, since in !ppp! it is
> used as a delimiter, and delimiters are tall and skinny, while
> " * " is short and fat.

It's tall and skinny shape is exactly why I want ! to stay as the
linebreak character.  Look at the examples I posted; the reason it
works so well to aid readability there is that it's so easy to
ignore it when reading the score directly in ABC.  Since it has
nothing whatever to do with the musical content, direct reading
is precisely when it's most important to have an almost invisible
symbol.

Again: show me a score written for processing by abcm2ps that was
written with any attention whatever to source readability.  If you
simply don't care how headache-inducing your source is, why should
you insist on any specific lexicon?

-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
 * food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro".
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jack Campin]

>| I play a lot of folk dance music which consist of phrases of 8 bars.
>| When linebreaks are every 4 or 8 bars, this makes the score more
>| readable.
> I think that dance musicians usually really like having the phrases
> aligned  this  way,  but  most other musicians don't see the benefit
> (and some vehemently dislike it).

Another class of people who use it a lot is highland pipers.  For
their scores, there are usually about as many gracenotes as melody
notes, and it can get visually difficult to figure out what's going
on (particularly in the setting where most pipers use tunebooks,
with the music on a table some distance away while working with a
practice chanter).  So they line up the beat notes vertically; it's
a bit like the way columns of decimal numbers are usually laid out -
gracenotes to the left of the invisible beat line and melody notes
to the right of it.  I do the same with ABCs of Highland pipe music,
since the {...} notation creates the same sort of visual jitter that
pipe gracenotes do.

Look at the G.S. MacLennan tune collection on my site for some
samples; GS was one of the main creators of the modern gracenote-
heavy piping style.  (The typesetting of the collection he edited
himself didn't do it, though - it came later, presumably after some
army piping instructor realized that GS-induced eyestrain was an
avoidable occupational hazard).


> I've occasionally wondered whether Jack Campin gets  similar  flames.
> His  abc  is  very nicely aligned vertically, making the structure of
> the music really obvious.  This just has to offend some people ...

Most are along the lines of "why didn't you tell me Windows Notepad
could do that?", which induces a feeling like an author must get when
told their novel has been adopted as a sacred text by a cult devoted
to child sacrifice.

-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
 * food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro".
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[I. Oppenheim]

On Sun, 6 Jul 2003, Eric Galluzzo wrote:

> In practice, I have found that I usually don't include that many
> dynamics on one line, so most Y: lines (at least in my music) would
> probably end up looking something like this:
> Y:   |   | * p | | * <( |

That's exactly the reason why I don't like the idea of
having a separate line for dynamics: it will be
much more work to enter them, and it won't make the
notation any prettier.

> To be honest, the %%staves directive is much easier for me to read. :)
> I can easily tell what goes where.  But I may well just be in the
> minority here, and I'll bow to whatever the consensus is.  One beef is
> that I don't know if "merge" means that the voice should merge with the
> previous voice or the next voice.

I fully agree on that with you. Since the %%staves
notation uses a graphical notation, it is much more
intuitive to understand. I do not think you're in the
minority here.

> Yup, quite right.  All this seems like information that pertains to that
> particular voice.  But the staff grouping marks seem like "metastaff"
> information -- or information about staff groups (as Lilypond would call
> them), so I feel that they shouldn't go on the actual voices themselves.

You hit the nail on the head:
meta information should be specified with a %% command.

Irwin
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[I. Oppenheim]

> Saving two chars of typing in a definition doesn't seem  to
> be  a good payoff for eliminating most of the uses of a new
> feature.

I agree on that.
Irwin
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jeff Bigler]

> Date: Sat, 05 Jul 2003 09:07:33 +0200
> From: Bert Van Vreckem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> Jeff Bigler wrote:
> > I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit linebreak
> > command that would override the "continue all line ends (append '\')"
> > option to the abc2ps-like programs.  Usually, I want the program to just
> > decide where to put the line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.
> 
> Well, personally I want to be in charge of linebreaks myself. I play a 
> lot of folk dance music which consist of phrases of 8 bars. When 
> linebreaks are every 4 or 8 bars, this makes the score more readable.

Agreed.  When I'm transcribing morris dance tunes, I try to do that.
When I'm doing classical music, I prefer to let the software do the
splitting, and tweak it only when necessary.

I never meant to suggest getting rid of newline signifying a linebreak.
What I would like to see is:

1) Newline continues to signify a linebreak unless preceded by \
   This can be overridden by the software.  (E.g., the -c option in
   abc(m)2ps).

2) An additional explicit linebreak command (e.g., !) signifies a
   linebreak that *cannot* be overridden by the software.  This would
   allow me to run abcm2ps with the -c option and still be able to say
   "put a linebreak here".

3) A "no line break" command, which would tell the software to rearrange
   the output as necessary to avoid putting a linebreak there.

Jeff
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>Eric Galluzzo writes:
>|
>| > >So: how about that we agree that "U:T = trill" type notation is
>| > >acceptable, and put into the standard?  We could simply state that it is
>| > >a symbol binding, or redefinition, or whatever we want to call it.  It
>| > >would apply to player programs as well as tadpole-generating programs.
>| > >The BarFly definition of U:, so I gather, is somewhat broader; but this
>| > >is at least a least common denominator that covers most common uses of
>| > >U:.  I think that this notation should satisfy Phil, Jack, etc., since
>| > >it is compatible with BarFly; and it should satisfy John, Irwin, etc.,
>| > >since it is close "in spirit" to U:T = !trill!.
>| >
>| > I'm happy with that.
>
>A lot of us probably aren't.  Do we really want to ban  the
>use of the U: construct for any other uses except replacing
>a single wordy annotation with a single letter?

You've still got this back to front.  The U: definition does
not replace a wordy annotation with a single letter - it tells
the program what that single letter means.  That is not a macro,
nothing is being replaced in the text.

>This seems to me the crux of the issue.  If U:   defines  a
>text  substitution  (and  thus requires the ! chars if they
>are part of the text), then there are a zillion other  uses
>for  such abbreviations.  If the bangs are assumed, then U:
>can only be used to define a 1-char name for an annotation,
>and  we'll end up having another 5-year debate about how to
>do all those other useful things.

Yes, but all the other stuff can be done with macros.  Don't
ruin the U: field by confusing it with macros.  We need
both.

>I know that, in C, if #define were restricted to generating
>only  a  single  C  keyword, it would radically cripple its
>usefulness.  I doubt if any C  programmer  would  seriously
>consider such a restriction.  Of course, it's easier to see
>this if you've been using such definitions for years.   ABC
>hasn't  had  such  "parameterless  macros",  so  most users
>aren't aware of how useful they might be.

BarFly has had both static (parameterless) and transposing
(single parameter) macros for years.  I really do know how
useful they are.

>Saving two chars of typing in a definition doesn't seem  to
>be  a good payoff for eliminating most of the uses of a new
>feature.

I don't care about saving two chars;  I do care about the
confusion created between macros and symbol assignments.

>On the other hand, we might find it almost never used. I've
>seen  printed music that included a bunch of definitions of
>symbols that were used for ornaments.  It's easy enough  to
>do.  But how much printed music ever does such things?  The
>capability exists in printed music.  Even without examples,
>you can probably figure out how to do it. But hardly anyone
>ever uses it outside of music-history textbooks.

Take a look at the (printed) Goldberg Variations.  In the back
of the book there's a key to the squiggles which Bach used
to represent various ornaments.  At least in the edition which
I have, this is reproduced from inside the cover of one of
his kid's music homework books and is in the man's own
handwriting.  No way could you figure out how to play that
music as he intended without that key.  Likewise no computer
program could display or play it without a similar set of
definitions.  Now this is not an obscure historical piece
of music - it is still immensely popular and regularly
performed - any good record shop will probably have at
least half a dozen different artist's versions of it
available.  We're not talking music history textbooks here.
That's just one example;  believe me the usefulness of
this system is not confined to baroque music, it's every
bit as useful for the traditional music which is the
staple diet of abc.

>The same thing could well happen with abc.  Musicians would
>learn  the  !...! notation, but if they ever ran across the
>U:  definition, they'd skip over it and never even remember
>that it exists. Those few who read abc directly would learn
>about it; the rest (who mostly treat ABC  as  a  write-only
>notation) would never see it or use it.

It seems to me that the people who work directly with abc
are the leaders here - they are the people who are doing the
most interesting and creative work.  Even if what you say
is true, why deny them a vital tool?

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[John Chambers]

Eric Galluzzo writes:
|
| > >So: how about that we agree that "U:T = trill" type notation is
| > >acceptable, and put into the standard?  We could simply state that it is
| > >a symbol binding, or redefinition, or whatever we want to call it.  It
| > >would apply to player programs as well as tadpole-generating programs.
| > >The BarFly definition of U:, so I gather, is somewhat broader; but this
| > >is at least a least common denominator that covers most common uses of
| > >U:.  I think that this notation should satisfy Phil, Jack, etc., since
| > >it is compatible with BarFly; and it should satisfy John, Irwin, etc.,
| > >since it is close "in spirit" to U:T = !trill!.
| >
| > I'm happy with that.

A lot of us probably aren't.  Do we really want to ban  the
use of the U: construct for any other uses except replacing
a single wordy annotation with a single letter?

This seems to me the crux of the issue.  If U:   defines  a
text  substitution  (and  thus requires the ! chars if they
are part of the text), then there are a zillion other  uses
for  such abbreviations.  If the bangs are assumed, then U:
can only be used to define a 1-char name for an annotation,
and  we'll end up having another 5-year debate about how to
do all those other useful things.

I know that, in C, if #define were restricted to generating
only  a  single  C  keyword, it would radically cripple its
usefulness.  I doubt if any C  programmer  would  seriously
consider such a restriction.  Of course, it's easier to see
this if you've been using such definitions for years.   ABC
hasn't  had  such  "parameterless  macros",  so  most users
aren't aware of how useful they might be.

Saving two chars of typing in a definition doesn't seem  to
be  a good payoff for eliminating most of the uses of a new
feature.

On the other hand, we might find it almost never used. I've
seen  printed music that included a bunch of definitions of
symbols that were used for ornaments.  It's easy enough  to
do.  But how much printed music ever does such things?  The
capability exists in printed music.  Even without examples,
you can probably figure out how to do it. But hardly anyone
ever uses it outside of music-history textbooks.

The same thing could well happen with abc.  Musicians would
learn  the  !...! notation, but if they ever ran across the
U:  definition, they'd skip over it and never even remember
that it exists. Those few who read abc directly would learn
about it; the rest (who mostly treat ABC  as  a  write-only
notation) would never see it or use it.

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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jeff Bigler]

> I've always thought of the %% construct as being for new and
> experimental stuff, which is always going to break other programs, so
> if the staves command becomes standard I would prefer that it got it's
> own field identifier.

I had always thought %% was for commands specific to a particular
program or subset of programs.  I.e., any program could decide which %%
commands it wanted to interpret, as those commands would not be part of
the actual ABC.

Jeff
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Eric Galluzzo]

On Sat, 2003-07-05 at 10:37, Phil Taylor wrote:
> Eric Galluzzo wrote:
> 
> >All programs, to my knowledge, that implement the !...! construct
> >(abcm2ps, jcabc2ps, and abc2midi?) are under active development, to my
> >knowledge.  Therefore, all of them could easily be altered to accept "*"
> >as the character rather than "!" (perhaps accepting the "!" as a legacy
> >construct).  We would have a rather more difficult time changing
> >abc2win, since it is not open-source; and the myriad tunes that are
> >already on the web could not be changed.
> >
> >For the record, I have used !...! a great deal, but I would certainly be
> >willing to change all my ABC to use the *...* notation instead.  I
> >imagine that if we could reach a consensus on this issue, most other
> >people who use this notation would be willing to do so as well.  People
> >just want something that works; they do not terribly care what it is.
> >Furthermore, if this were done, I could feel free to introduce "!" into
> >my scores with the abc2win meaning, which could be useful at times.
> 
> I'd be perfectly happy with that, especially if the  use of ! was deprecated.

Use of ! in the abcm2ps/abc2midi meaning, or in the abc2win meaning?  I
was thinking that we could actually standardize it to have the abc2win
meaning, so that lots of formerly non-standard files would suddenly
become standard ABC. :)  It's also a useful feature.  Who knows, we
could even add a !! for "don't break here."  But I'm getting ahead of
myself. :)

> >Regarding U:
> >
> >
> >Someone else has stated both of these points before me, but I do take
> >the view that the !...! construct is essential, for the following
> >reasons:
> >
> >1. It is very possible to use more than 19 symbols (H..Z) in one file.
> >For example, I could very easily use !! through !!, !sfz!, !<(!,
> >!<)!, !>(!, !>)!, !fermata!, !tenuto!, !wedge!, !trill!, and !0! through
> >!4! in a single piece.  That's 24 already.
> 
> If the U: field is permitted within the tune you could recycle symbols,
> thus lifting the 19 maximum limit.  Of course, if you need that many
> extra symbols in a single tune your abc is never going to be readable
> anyway.

True.  In my particular case, I'm not as concerned about readability as
whether all the appropriate marks get output on the score and all the
dynamics get put into the MIDI.  Also, I'm not so sure I like the idea
of U: redefinition within a tune, although I don't necessarily think it
should be prohibited).  If the symbol definitions (or "bindings," I
suppose) are constantly changing, it will be very difficult to determine
what a particular mark means simply by looking at it in the ABC.  If it
is spelled out, there will be no problem whatsoever.

> >2. Some of the symbols are much more easily understood as their expanded
> >form than as a single-letter redefined symbol.  For example, if I see
> >!pp! in a tune, I know that it means pianissimo.  If I see S, I have no
> >idea.  Again, if I see !1! I know it's a fingering.  If I see Q, I have
> >no idea.
> 
> Music with lots of dynamic markings is never going to yield readable
> abc if the markings are inserted inline, whether as single letters or
> as explicit names.  Another suggestion which has come up here previously
> is to put such markings in a separate line of text with its own field
> symbol, to be aligned with the music using the same mechanism that's
> used for aligned words.

Yeah, that was I: I proposed a "Y:" directive here on August 29, 1998,
and then revised it on May 7, 1999 to include the separate-line version.
:)  However, for better or worse, the idea never caught on, and many
well-established programs like abc2midi decided to put the dynamics
inline instead.  I'm not sure which I like better, although I do know
that I already have a whole bunch of tunes that have !...! in them, and
it would be a pain to have to re-transcribe them. :)  However, I'm
certainly willing to do it if the community decides that they would
prefer the separate dynamics line.

In practice, I have found that I usually don't include that many
dynamics on one line, so most Y: lines (at least in my music) would
probably end up looking something like this:

Y:   |   | * p | | * <( |

which is kinda silly.

> >So: how about that we agree that "U:T = trill" type notation is
> >acceptable, and put into the standard?  We could simply state that it is
> >a symbol binding, or redefinition, or whatever we want to call it.  It
> >would apply to player programs as well as tadpole-generating programs.
> >The BarFly definition of U:, so I gather, is somewhat broader; but this
> >is at least a least common denominator that covers most common uses of
> >U:.  I think that this notation should satisfy Phil, Jack, etc., since
> >it is compatible with BarFly; and it should satisfy John, Irwin, etc.,
> >since it is close "in spirit" to U:T = !trill!.
> 
> I'm happy with that.

That's great!

> >
> >Regar

Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Henrik Norbeck]

Eric Galluzzo wrote:
> > However, they also seem to be incompatible.  So, why not pick a symbol
> > other than "!" for the latter usage [dynamics and other decorations]?
> > "*" seems ideal, and quite logical, too:

I think it seems to be the only sensible solution to the problem.
* may be a bit too heavy symbol, but I quite like the look of it:

> X:1
> T:Sample
> M:4/4
> L:1/8
> K:C
> *pp*CDEF GAB*fermata*c |]

AbcMus also currently supports !...! notation, but I don't think many 
people use it.
So maybe we should let all files containing !...! break if they don't 
substitute *...* for it instead. There can't be that many tunes around 
using !...! anyway, or?

John, the way you could count tunes using !...! would be to look for 
more lines containing more than one !


Henrik Norbeck, Stockholm, Sweden
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.norbeck.nu/ My home page
http://www.norbeck.nu/abcmus/  AbcMus player program
http://www.norbeck.nu/abc/ >1900 ABC tunes
http://www.norbeck.nu/blackthorn Irish trad music band
http://www.rfod.se/folklink/   Links to Swedish trad music
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[John Walsh]

Eric Galuzzo writes:
>2. abc2midi (not abcm2ps, by the way) originally introduced !...! for
>dynamics, !ppp! to !fff!.  abcm2ps adopted it.  It too is useful for
>symbols, dynamics, etc.  Very few tunes have this construct in it.
>
>Irwin has said, rightly as it seems to me, that both are useful. 
>However, they also seem to be incompatible.  So, why not pick a symbol
>other than "!" for the latter usage?  "*" seems ideal, and quite
>logical, too: in emails, IRC, etc., it is commonly used to boldface or
>emote something.  Thus:
>

My first reaction is that" ! " is better, since in !ppp! it is
used as a delimiter, and delimiters are tall and skinny, while " * " is
short and fat.

Cheers,
John Walsh
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John Chambers
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>Anyway, I think that dance musicians usually really like  having  the
>phrases  aligned  this  way,  but  most other musicians don't see the
>benefit (and some vehemently dislike it).

I transcribe quite a few tunes for Scottish Pipes and I find they
generally want equal-spaced barlines and 4 to a line.

My books on notation say this should never be done. If the barlines are
in line on 2 consecutive staves then they should be artificially
displaced to make reading easier.

But once you realise that pipers *memorise* music then it becomes
obvious why they prefer it: and the same I guess goes for many other
musicians who do not sight-read the music in normal performance.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[John Chambers]

Bert Van Vreckem writes:
| Jeff Bigler wrote:
| > I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit linebreak
| > command that would override the "continue all line ends (append '\')"
| > option to the abc2ps-like programs.  Usually, I want the program to just
| > decide where to put the line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.
|
| Well, personally I want to be in charge of linebreaks myself. I play a
| lot of folk dance music which consist of phrases of 8 bars. When
| linebreaks are every 4 or 8 bars, this makes the score more readable.

Yeah; I do this a lot, too. Funny thing:  A couple of years ago, when
I  posted  an  explanation like this, I got royally flamed by several
people who though this was one of the  stupidest  ideas  they'd  ever
heard.   I was a bit surprised to find that some people actually have
emotional reactions to such things.

Anyway, I think that dance musicians usually really like  having  the
phrases  aligned  this  way,  but  most other musicians don't see the
benefit (and some vehemently dislike it).

I've occasionally wondered whether Jack Campin gets  similar  flames.
His  abc  is  very nicely aligned vertically, making the structure of
the music really obvious.  This just has to offend some people ...

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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Phil Taylor]

Eric Galluzzo wrote:

>All programs, to my knowledge, that implement the !...! construct
>(abcm2ps, jcabc2ps, and abc2midi?) are under active development, to my
>knowledge.  Therefore, all of them could easily be altered to accept "*"
>as the character rather than "!" (perhaps accepting the "!" as a legacy
>construct).  We would have a rather more difficult time changing
>abc2win, since it is not open-source; and the myriad tunes that are
>already on the web could not be changed.
>
>For the record, I have used !...! a great deal, but I would certainly be
>willing to change all my ABC to use the *...* notation instead.  I
>imagine that if we could reach a consensus on this issue, most other
>people who use this notation would be willing to do so as well.  People
>just want something that works; they do not terribly care what it is.
>Furthermore, if this were done, I could feel free to introduce "!" into
>my scores with the abc2win meaning, which could be useful at times.

I'd be perfectly happy with that, especially if the  use of ! was deprecated.

>
>Regarding U:
>
>
>Someone else has stated both of these points before me, but I do take
>the view that the !...! construct is essential, for the following
>reasons:
>
>1. It is very possible to use more than 19 symbols (H..Z) in one file.
>For example, I could very easily use !! through !!, !sfz!, !<(!,
>!<)!, !>(!, !>)!, !fermata!, !tenuto!, !wedge!, !trill!, and !0! through
>!4! in a single piece.  That's 24 already.

If the U: field is permitted within the tune you could recycle symbols,
thus lifting the 19 maximum limit.  Of course, if you need that many
extra symbols in a single tune your abc is never going to be readable
anyway.

>2. Some of the symbols are much more easily understood as their expanded
>form than as a single-letter redefined symbol.  For example, if I see
>!pp! in a tune, I know that it means pianissimo.  If I see S, I have no
>idea.  Again, if I see !1! I know it's a fingering.  If I see Q, I have
>no idea.

Music with lots of dynamic markings is never going to yield readable
abc if the markings are inserted inline, whether as single letters or
as explicit names.  Another suggestion which has come up here previously
is to put such markings in a separate line of text with its own field
symbol, to be aligned with the music using the same mechanism that's
used for aligned words.


>So: how about that we agree that "U:T = trill" type notation is
>acceptable, and put into the standard?  We could simply state that it is
>a symbol binding, or redefinition, or whatever we want to call it.  It
>would apply to player programs as well as tadpole-generating programs.
>The BarFly definition of U:, so I gather, is somewhat broader; but this
>is at least a least common denominator that covers most common uses of
>U:.  I think that this notation should satisfy Phil, Jack, etc., since
>it is compatible with BarFly; and it should satisfy John, Irwin, etc.,
>since it is close "in spirit" to U:T = !trill!.

I'm happy with that.

>
>Regarding %%staves
>--
>
>I personally find %%staves very useful, and (despite comments to the
>contrary) very intuitive.  How about adding some official variant of
>this to the standard?  It seems much more concise, and more intuitive,
>than the
>
>V:1 bracket=2
>
>type notation that abc2ps had originally introduced.  We are running out
>of letters for headers, though; how about lowercase "s"?  Thus:
>
>X:1
>T:My Choir + Organ Piece
>M:4/4
>L:1/4
>s:[1 2 3 4] {(5 6) (7 8) 9}
>K:C

I've always thought of the %% construct as being for new and experimental
stuff, which is always going to break other programs, so if the staves
command becomes standard I would prefer that it got it's own field identifier.
However, the use of numbers and brackets is cryptic.

Compare your tune the way BarFly does it:

X:1
T:My Choir + Organ Piece
M:4/4
L:1/4
V:1 bracketon
V:2
V:3
V:4 bracketoff
V:5 bracketon
V:6 merge
V:7
V:8 merge
V:9 bracketoff
K:C

This will give you 9 voices on seven staves, with the top 4 and bottom 3
bracketed together.  "merge" means draw this voice to the same stave as
the previous one.  The empty V: fields are not required.

In practice, there's lots of other stuff which goes into V: fields in the
header too, such as clef, middle and transpose directives, longbaron/off
(controls the drawing of long vertical barlines in the same way that
bracketon/off controls brackets), up/down for stem directions, program,
channel, mute, tune and pan (for stereo).

BarFly currently reads the %%staves directive if present, but directives
placed in V: fields in the header will override it.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[John Chambers]

Laura Conrad writes:
| > "Jeff" == Jeff Bigler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
| Jeff> I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit
| Jeff> linebreak command that would override the "continue all line
| Jeff> ends (append '\')" option to the abc2ps-like programs.
| Jeff> Usually, I want the program to just decide where to put the
| Jeff> line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.
|
| I feel the same way about having the program figure it out.  But I
| find when I'm writing lilypond, which has both  \break and \noBreak
| commands, I use \noBreak much more often.  That is, usually it doesn't
| matter to me, but once in a while there's a line break at a clearly
| undesirable place, so I say, "Don't do that," and then lily does
| something more reasonable.

I've occasionally thought of making the suggestion that we  add  some
"end of ..." items to the growing !...! list.  Such as:

!EOS!   End of staff
!EOT!   End of tune

It sounds like  an  explicit  !NoEOS!  would  be  useful,  too.   But
considering the difficulty we already have straightening out the mess
caused by just one program doing such a thing, I suppose this is  far
too radical a suggestion.

I'd also thought that !! might be a good synonym for !EOS!, but  that
isn't 100% compatible with abc2win, so it wouldn't help fix the mess.

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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Bert Van Vreckem]

Jeff Bigler wrote:
I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit linebreak
command that would override the "continue all line ends (append '\')"
option to the abc2ps-like programs.  Usually, I want the program to just
decide where to put the line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.
Well, personally I want to be in charge of linebreaks myself. I play a 
lot of folk dance music which consist of phrases of 8 bars. When 
linebreaks are every 4 or 8 bars, this makes the score more readable.

--
Bert Van Vreckem 
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and
oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital
ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry
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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jeff Bigler
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit linebreak
>command that would override the "continue all line ends (append '\')"
>option to the abc2ps-like programs.  Usually, I want the program to just
>decide where to put the line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.

The solution I'm coming up with on the next release of Music Publisher
is to provide an editing screen where changes can be made to abc file
before use. And including a "reflow" command for bars so that it will
fit on whatever page and stave size you have defined.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Laura Conrad]

> "Jeff" == Jeff Bigler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Jeff> I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit
Jeff> linebreak command that would override the "continue all line
Jeff> ends (append '\')" option to the abc2ps-like programs.
Jeff> Usually, I want the program to just decide where to put the
Jeff> line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.

I feel the same way about having the program figure it out.  But I
find when I'm writing lilypond, which has both  \break and \noBreak
commands, I use \noBreak much more often.  That is, usually it doesn't
matter to me, but once in a while there's a line break at a clearly
undesirable place, so I say, "Don't do that," and then lily does
something more reasonable.

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139


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Re: [abcusers] Solution for ! notation?

[Jeff Bigler]

> From: Eric Galluzzo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 04 Jul 2003 19:53:11 -0400
> 
> Irwin has said, rightly as it seems to me, that both are useful.
> However, they also seem to be incompatible.  So, why not pick a symbol
> other than "!" for the latter usage [dynamics and other decorations]?
> "*" seems ideal, and quite logical, too: in emails, IRC, etc., it is
> commonly used to boldface or emote something.  Thus:
> 
> X:1
> T:Sample
> M:4/4
> L:1/8
> K:C
> *pp*CDEF GAB*fermata*c |]
> 
> If folks do not like "*" (perhaps because of the aforementioned abc2mtex
> usage), another unused character could be chosen instead.
>
> All programs, to my knowledge, that implement the !...! construct
> (abcm2ps, jcabc2ps, and abc2midi?) are under active development, to my
> knowledge.  Therefore, all of them could easily be altered to accept
> "*" as the character rather than "!" (perhaps accepting the "!" as a
> legacy construct).  We would have a rather more difficult time
> changing abc2win, since it is not open-source; and the myriad tunes
> that are already on the web could not be changed.

I agree.  Going forward, it doesn't matter which character we choose for
dynamics and other decorations.  The only concern is supporting legacy
ABC that's already out there.  I like your solution of explicitly
supporting !...! as an alternative form for the elements that are
already defined in 1.7.6.

> For the record, I have used !...! a great deal, but I would certainly be
> willing to change all my ABC to use the *...* notation instead.  I
> imagine that if we could reach a consensus on this issue, most other
> people who use this notation would be willing to do so as well.  People
> just want something that works; they do not terribly care what it is.
> Furthermore, if this were done, I could feel free to introduce "!" into
> my scores with the abc2win meaning, which could be useful at times.

I would find it particularly useful to have an explicit linebreak
command that would override the "continue all line ends (append '\')"
option to the abc2ps-like programs.  Usually, I want the program to just
decide where to put the line breaks, with a few rare exceptions.

While we're discussing !...! decorations, I'd like to revive a
suggestion I made last year for some shorter alternatives (plus some
additional decorations).  In your example (and in the 1.7.6 draft
standard), I note that *fermata* is particularly clunky and interrupts
the readability of the ABC more than I think necessary:

> X:1
> T:Sample
> M:4/4
> L:1/8
> K:C
> *pp*CDEF GAB*fermata*c |]

A little over a year ago, I suggested a list of shorter delimiters.
There were some problems with how I presented them, but I would like to
revive the suggestion with the following slightly modified list.  I'd
welcome any feedback.  I'm using the !...! notation in this list, but if
we decide to use something other than ! (such as * or +) for a
delimiter, it's easy enough to make the appropriate substitution.


Symbols not associated with a note:

!"! repeat previous bar.  (Symbol looks like a large %
taking up the whole bar.)
!"2!, !"3!, etc.  repeat previous 2 (3, etc.) bars.  (Symbol looks like
a large % sign across 2 (or 3, etc.) bars.)
!,! comma (i.e., momentary pause in the music)
!,1.5!  comma that lasts (for example) 1.5 times the default
note length (for programs that play music)
!=! "railroad tracks" (i.e., break in the music)
!=1.5!  "railroad tracks" pause that lasts (for example) 1.5
times the default note length (for programs that play
music)
!'! breath mark (apostrophe)
!c! coda symbol (a ring with a cross in it)
!|! phrase mark (vertical line in upper part of staff)
!|l!long phrase mark (extending 3/4 of way to bottom of
staff)
!|m!medium phrase mark (extending to middle of staff)
!|s!short phrase mark
!q(!beginning of cue (display notes within this delimiter as
small notes on the staff, with rests above or below)
!q)!end of cue


Symbols associated with a note:

!+! or !*!  left-hand pizzicato mark (looks like a + over the note)
!+s! or !*s!snap-pizzicato (or "Bartok" pizzicato) mark
!-! tenuto mark (dash) over/under the note
!0! through !9! display the number over/under the note head (e.g., for
fingerings).  Multiple fingerings (for chords) displayed
from top to bottom.
!th!thumb symbol (for cello thumb position)
!>! accent mark
!^! strong accent (a dark ^ over a note)
!g! glissando from the next note to the one after it
!g(!glissando starting with this note (I.e., all notes
glissandoed together until !g)! command)
!g)!glissando ending with this note (i.e., close a !g(!