h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: abc notation (music, computers and very little grief) - A12379980
Author: Mellow-Dee - U2969144

This is the first time I have submitted anything for peer review, so please be gentle!

Any constructive criticisms will be seriously considered.

Wow, Mellow-Dee! A very fine first effort . I sincerely apologise that it's been overlooked until now. And welcome to Peer Review

I haven't taken a music class in over ten years, and with only the vaguest memory of how music is written I found this relatively easy to follow and understand. Good job with the GuideML, too!

There are a few adjustments that would need to be made for this to be in line with the Edited Guide criteria, but they are really easy to fix.

Although h2g2 is Douglas Adams' creation in line with his ideas in the Hitchhikers books, we strive to be a truly internationally accessible database of factual information. Unfortunately what this means is that the Vogon and other Hitchhikers references will need to be removed. It would be possible to keep the comments where the references are mentioned if you can use a more domestic example ("... so it probably won't help you settle that dispute with the neighbours whose dog piddles in your garden.").

I like the chatty tone of your entry, but generally using the first-person is frowned upon. If you can find a way to edit out the "I"s and keep your quotes, then the double quotes " should be replaced with single quotes ' (Edited standard).

Thank you Milos. I will attend to the points you raised.

I like this one. Is this notation used much? The 128K ZX Spectrums had something similar, though not exactly the same. With a little work this is bound for the Edited Guide. Have you read the <./>writing-guidelines</.>? There's a few things you should change to fit with house style, starting with capitalising the significant words in the heading.

So, on with the nitpicks, mostly stuff I think needs explaining for non-musicians:

If you start at middle C and go CDEFGHABcdefghab, isn't that two octaves? You say it's one.

Could you explain how to make longer notes? Looking at your example I guess a2 is a double-length (crotchet in this case) note. Could you do a half-length or third-length note?

What's the ~ mean? What are the first and second endings? Do sharps and flats follow from naming the key?

Thanks Bagpuss. I know that the nitpicking will make a good article eventually.

As for the use of ABC notation, it seems to be gaining ground as more people become aware of it. I would like to think that it has the following advantages over the commercial systems currently on the market:
* The notation files are human-readable and more compact than MHTML (Music HTML), MTeX and Lilypond (other systems that use ASCII input)
* There is an increasing support base of shareware and freeware

Something I need advice on, since House Style requires that each word in the title should be capitalised. Should I use "ABC" or "abc"? the latter being more commonly regarded as the "proper" form by users.

That's all worth mentioning in the article, especially the bit about shareware and freeware. As you add more stuff, a couple of headers would help to divide the article up (it's up to you, though - there's no hard and fast rules about them, except "Don't start the article with a header").

I say leave it in lowercase if that's the norm. I struggled to find a precedent in the EG, until I realised h2g2 is never capitalised: A3392237.

I don't want to get too bogged down in the title (a Sub-Editor should sort that stuff when your entry's picked, but if you make the changes yourself you can do it how you want), but "and" doesn't need a capital letter, and brackets are not normally used it titles. If I were Subbing it, your title would end up as: "abc Notation - Music, Computers and Very Little Grief".

Your help and encouragement is very much appreciated Bagpuss. I hope the latest revision has added a little value to the article.

Again I must defer to your experience - when referring to the "submit" button on a webpage is it ok to write:

[submit] ?

or does the Guide have a preferred form? would just 'the "submit" button' be better?

Like this: 'Submit' button

The house style insists on single quotation marks, though personally I prefer doubles.

That Convert-A-Matic link is good. I now know how 'Paddy O'Rafferty' goes.

This entry is very interesting and useful. . Especially as one can convert the abc-notation to sheet music - if I understand correctly. I'm terrible at writing/drawing the notes by hand.

A few questions:

Does B2 mean two eigths = a quarter tone?

And as Bagpuss asks - how to note b's and #'es

I still don't get the ~-sign



"Late in 1991 a rather clever musician who also happened be a university lecturer" - happened *to* be a....

OK, I've put Paddy O'Rafferty through the Convert-A-Matic and have gotten answers to most of my questions. Now I just have to learn my keys, don't I.

So much easier if I could write #F og bB and let the machine sort it out.

"Does B2 mean two eigths = a quarter tone?"
A number after the letter indicates that the default length should be multipled by n. The default length is specified by L:n in the header or elsewhere in the tune.

To sharpen a note, prefix the letter with ^
To flatten, prefix with _

As for the keys, that is where the scales and arpeggios practice pays off. I should confess that I am not much good at scales.

This article could get rather involved with a comprehensive explanation of musical notation, but I would prefer to keep it as simple, and focussed as possible. I think there are probably more "tootlers" like me than there are concert pianists.

I agree that you shouldn't get too deeply into things, Mellow (or would you prefer Dee?), and the link to the Standard lets us curious souls find the answers to our questions. The link might be better integrated into the text, though. Also, lists of links are generally introduced with a header saying "Links" and use and tags.

If you want to add links without taking up more space, you can use the tag at the end of the article. The link will then appear only in the sidebar. It works like this:



Blah
Blah-di-blah



Some other thoughts:

When you list the notes C, D, E,... you're probably better off missing out the commas, since you have to miss them later on doing notes below middle C.

You could do with emboldening everything you take from the example. That is use C:Trad rather than C:Trad. Unfortunately | doesn't really go bold, but I can see any way around this apart from using quotation marks instead of bold, but that would look a bit clumsy.

It occurs to me that my ZX Spectrum +3 is from 1986, and so its method of representing music in ASCII notation predates this method. Admitedly it was only for programming and not for communicating tunes, but you suggest that no-one had thought of using ASCII characters before.

Keep up the good work.

Mellow-Dee

Blah
Blah-di-blah



actually. (Outside the Body, but inside the Guide tags.) And you can use closed links, if you want. It makes no difference really, but I prefer 'em myself.

To link to a Guide Entry:



To link to an external site or a BBC page:



or, using open tags, if you prefer:

Blah-di-blah

Stuff in the References tags goes into the sidebar of the Entry, but not into the body text. There's no point providing a Title attribute or using open style for linking to another h2g2 Entry, as this will simply be ignored and the actual title of the Entry used instead.

TRiG.

I shall have to give it some thought. My preference would be to leave the references at the end of the article but put a header so that they are easier to find.

I'm a bit worried by this as it stands. It seems to suggest that nobody had devised a way of writing down music until 1991! There have in fact been ways of writing down music since about the 8th century.

The abc method you describe seems to be very similar to the one that was used in traditional song books at the beginning of the 20th Century, and may be based on it: this used do re mi rather than a b c but the method of writing the rhythm was much the same.

Thanks Gnômôn, you make a very good point. I will certainly clarify that, and it might be a good lead to various forms that abc has been adapted to represent as well.

Did I mention that I'm very glad you didn't leave entirely?

Let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed this. I was unaware of the abc notation until now - I was able to get a very good idea of the thing from the information presented - finally, I was delighted to be able to simply cut the example notation, paste it into the convert-a-matic and hear the music. I also like the playful tone of the entry.

Since this is in peer review, you are soliciting advice for better or worse. Here then is some that fits into one or the other of those categories:

It seems to me that the entry really starts at the third paragraph. From here down the text is consistent with the title, but to my mind, the first two paragraphs seem slightly adrift. As Gnomon points out, musical notation has been around for some time - and I would add that machine readable notation has been around since the player piano was invented. What hasn't been around until 1991, if I understand your meaning correctly, is a universal computer program language for encoding music - and this seems the crux of the matter.

You have all the information there: while musicians have been preoccupied with sex, beer and then music, and while the boffins whistled tunelessly as they tinkered with wholly non-musical computer applications, we have been left without a non-grief causing way to get computers to play music for us and share with our friends until now. I don't think a structural change is needed - this really is a lovely entry - I just think that you might tinker with the first two paragraphs. If it were me (which it isn't) I might even shorten the whole first paragraph to something like 'Music is a universal language that has been slow to find its way into modern computing.' Or something like that.

I hope that wasn't too dreadful - just remember that if nobody liked your entry in the first place, you wouldn't have gotten any comments at all. As for me, I do like it, very much.

Thank you for your encouragement Pailaway. I will see if I have any polish left. I keep telling the family not to leave it where it might fall into the word processor...