I'm happy about the chord-plus-bass note notation (e.g. "G/c"). I'm a contra dance pianist of the primitive vamping/comping ilk, and we do a lot of playing chords in the right hand against simple bass runs in the left, in the simplest case, just connecting the tonics of chords. However, I think it's a mistake to for the abc standard to make a part of the notation that a given bass note forces an inversion of the chord. Bass notes and inversions are different things, conceptually, and although a performer might well use an inversion of the chord if the bass line includes one of the chord notes, this is a matter of musical choice, not necessarily of abc notation. (To be sure, there may be some instruments where this inversion is very likely, but it is definitely not inevitable on rhythm piano.) For example, in a stretch of a couple of bars of "G" leading into "C" it is common to for the pianist's left-hand line bass to step down from g to c. So: "G/g" "G/f#" "G/e" "G/d" "C/c" Commonly, a contra dance pianist will play this using [B,DG] as the right-hand G chord, and step down with an octave bass line, beginning at [G,G,,]. This right-hand chord will stay constant throughout. In particular, there will be no change when the bass line reaches a D note. (Of course, a different instrument might well realize the same musical concept differently.) (The choice of realization of the G chord also depends in part on where the melody instrument is: inversions which span middle C are often chosen because they are high enough to be distinct to the dancers without intruding too much into the melody instrument's territory.) Bottom line: my recommendation for the standard abc notation is that "G" should simply mean an "abstract" G chord without _any_ assumption about inversions, octaves, or whatever. Of course, it would be perfectly _consistent_ with this abstract interpretation of chords for abc2midi to do what it does, since the abc notation itself wouldn't enforce any particular realization of a chord. Robert To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
