Re: Gt-tabs and drum-notation

[David Raleigh Arnold]

> Yeah, but do you think that those "musical illiterates" would create their own
> tabs?

Bet on it.

> Writing tabs are mainly for music teachers.

Yes, but so what? It doesn't teach anything, it avoids teaching.
> 
> In those cases you would have to create two melodies, and then use the one for
> the tab and the other for the staff:
> 
But you say you want to avoid duplication?
I want a different syntax because a string and fret is *not* a note. It
only gives the *location* of a note on an instrument. It gives it on a
staff that is *optional*. By using notes syntax, you need delimiters,
double digits, commas and apostrophes. Without it, you don't, so you
save keystrokes. Lots of them.

> What I want to do is using the existing syntax.
> What you want me to do is creating new syntax.
Yes. But *not* in the notes.
> Believe me: What I have in mind will be much easier to implement than what you
> have in mind.
I just want to put numbers on lines. That's it. Sometimes I have seen
indications of a bend which show the fret you *would* be at if you were
not bending. That kind of thing makes no sense to me. By using letters
for strings, you can avoid using delimiters _-^ altogether. You also
have
all the information *in one place*, except of course the alignment of
the numbers below the notes.

And it *finally* occurs to me that you don't even need parentheses for
chords in a tab part. Just the fret numbers and strings from bottom to
top and left to right, because there is only one part. Agggh!

As you well know, bad things happen to programs when ease of
implementation becomes paramount. Finale does the dots wrong, for
example.
> 
> I also compose my own music, and I know how to work with it.
> I think I would prefer it the way I have in mind, and I think that most other
> people would, too.

Most? Maybe. But for classical, jazz, or rock, I don't think so.
Classical because of the multiple parts, and the others because you are
nearly always on short frets. (There are so many of them!) I never do
guitar tab, and if I were to do it, it would be stuff written in two or
three parts. I do banjo tab, where the notation is also in two or three
parts, so this way will not be easier because I want the notation to
show what the music sounds like rather than just being written in such a
way that it makes tab. Because the tab only has one part, and the
notation does not, I won't be able to just copy and edit. Faster to type
it again.

> You already attach fingering, marks, etc directly to the notes.

but they are *printed with* the notes on the staff. Also, you don't
attach fingering to every note. If to do so were required by law, I'll
bet there would be a separate finger-part real quick. Otherwise, if you
had a fingering-part you would
need a lot of placeholders. But a tab part is self-sufficient.