Re: tab

[William R Brohinsky]

David Raleigh Arnold wrote:

> Thanks much.  The scholarly poster is right that there are
> historical instances of putting the first string at the
> bottom, but English renaissance lute tablature and all
> modern tabs have the first string at the top so the
> low notes will be on the bottom.  *No one alive* is really
> used to the upside down systems.
> 
> Of course the lute isn't around much any more, largely
> on account of tab.
> 

I suspect I may be 'the scholarly poster', and regret that my post went
to Mr. Arnold alone, a byproduct of the way my mailer chooses the to
whom for a reply. Here is the text of my post:

[begin quote]
It is worth noting that a single approach to tab is a Bad Thing(TM)
regardless of _which_ approach it is.

Those of us who use tab a lot know that there are many different ways of
tabbing even for a single instrument. Specifically, the lute:

Modern tab notation, especially in ASCII form, tends to use numbers in
the spaces between lines. The spaces, therefore, represent the strings.
In general, they are high-string to top space. This is quite easy to do
with ASCII, although tiresome to try to read.

French tab uses letters, laid on lines which represented strings. The
highest pitched string is on the top space. a is an open string, b is
the first fret. This was popular amongst the English Lutenist
Songwriter's school as well, so most lutenists who were exposed to tab
via that literature will want to see it.

Spanish tab uses numbers, usually laid over the line rather but also in
spaces. The highest pitched string is on the bottom of the tab staff.

These latter two standards alone (and I think something that has
persisted for a few hundred years probably deserves the honor of being
called a standard, certainly, if modern notation, a mere baby, does)
lead to an immense number of systems: Letters or numbers as fret
indicators; top pitch on top or bottom line; fret indicators on the
lines or in spaces between the lines; whether to have lines encompassing
highest and lowest strings if they are on spaces...

Now add timing (which much modern tab does not, making it almost useless
unless the person reading the tab already knows the music entabbed, ie,
useless for newly-composed music). Because of the difficulty of notating
long periods, most tab that notates time at all does it with
duration-indicators that are divide-by-2, 4 or 8 of how the music might
'normally' be notated. Thus contemporary scores exist in keyboard
notation with minims (look like diamond-shaped half-notes) and in lute
tab with single-flag stems, a 4:1 time-notation difference. Whole notes
floating over a tab staff ... well... look silly.

An additional difficulty is how to deal with 'extra strings'. If the
strings aren't fingered, they are traditionally notated by a single
character or set of characters under the bottom string's area. In french
tab, the general tendency was to treat the seventh string and even the
eighth as if it were just another fingerable string. (ie, 'a' for the
open string on a line of its own). More strings were treated a bit
differently, often by a/ a// a/// or a\ a\\ a\\\ notations in the space
below the staff. When the lute grew more strings (in the baroque period)
numbers were used, usually starting with 4. This can get quite out of
hand, by the way, especially since the counting of 'diapasons', the
extra courses, can start at the seventh or the tenth or... well,
anywhere.

Now, the tendency might be to say, "Lily is for notating modern stuff",
and dis the entire subject. As a counter to this, I note that Lily is
perfectly good for notating Bach's concertos, cantatas, overatures and
sonatas... even the violin partitas. But it cannot properly notate the
lute versions.

It is my belief that a system within lilypond for sensibly making tab
notation is possible. However, I have to admit that my years of FORTH,
various basics, and C have not prepared me for C++ and the incessant
object oriented paradigm. So if someone who is able to read lily's
internals and code, and who wants to have some fun implementing tab so
that it is as versatile and functional as tab has been for centuries,
I'd love to collaborate.

raybro

[end quote]

While it is easy to wave a hand and dis the lute and all tab systems
other than banjo and guitar, it is the aim of Lilypond to typeset
beautiful music notation, and anything that makes that goal easier
should be appropriate to consider.

The claim that nobody alive reads spanish notation is erroneous, at
least from a few moments ago when I checked my pulse. More importantly,
it addresses the question of whether printing and presenting early music
is appropriate in any form. Can it be that we should only print
renaissance music in score or piano-reduction form? Perhaps it is
desirable that all music only be published in one or the other of those
forms. On the other hand, Lilypond _does_ have fonts and clefs for
printing white mensural notation and neumes, and now can also do tab. 

Perhaps it is as viable an approach to tell the folk wanting to print
tab that they should just be using modern staff notation?

I still feel that the question of being able to print tabs appropriate
to different instruments and different styles of tabbing is desirable,
and my offer is still open if someone who can deal with the code wants
to discuss it.

raybro