LL-L "Software" 2002.11.02 (06) [E]

Sun Nov 3 00:49:54 UTC 2002

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Literature"

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Literature
>
> Sandy,
>
> > Midi files, hm! I do have the sheet music in a book (along with that
> "Boers"
> > version.
>
> Yes.  But I have a clever little program that can convert Midi files to
> sheet music!  :)  (How do you symbolize drooling?)  Let me know
> if you ever
> need that audio-to-visual conversion service, Sandy.  I'm not sure right
> now, but I believe I can convert the output to PDFs or some other
> format you
> can read.

Thanks for the offer, Ron, but I'm well ahead of the game here!

I've been experimenting with abc format for some time now - in
fact, a year or two ago I submitted a tune or two in abc format
to the list and suggested that we could use this format for
presenting music through email. Things have advanced since then -
there's more abc software and moves have been made towards having
it accepted as a MIME format.

You may find that if you have a music processing package (such as
Melody Assistant or MusicEase) it can already import and convert
between Midi/abc/sheet music formats, so all you would have to do
to hear a tune submitted on the list would be to paste it into your
music software. Here's an example of my abc transcription (could be
made fancier, but it's functional), it's the traditional drinking
song "Toddlin Hame":

X:1
T:Toddlin Hame
C:Trad.
L:1/8
M:6/8
K:A
(A/>B/)|c>B A F>G A|E>F A ({A}B2) (A/B/)|
(c>B) A F>G A|(E>F) A A2 A|d>e c2 c|B>c (d/c/) ({c}B2) (A/B/)|
c>B A (F>G) A|(E>F) A A3|
(c>B) A (F>GA)|(E>F) A B2 (A/>B/)|
c>B A (F>G) A|(E>F) A A2|

To see what this is all about try pasting the notation above into
the HTML form at http://www.fojar.com/~steve/abctostaff/

It'll return a very good .png of the sheet music!

Not being an experienced musician, I also like working with abc
in the raw - ie just reading it instead of reading from sheet
music. For example, looking at the above tune I can instantly
see that the (E>F) slide is very important. as well as the
various F>G A patterns. Although professional musicians can
probably see all this directly from a musical score, I can't.

abc has one definite advantage over other music formats - it
makes it possible to search for musical phrases using a simple
ascii search engine.

abc software and songbooks can be found at the abc homepage
at http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/

In case you want to sing it, the words to the above tune are:

Whan A hae a saxpence under ma thoum,
Then A'll get credit in ilka toun:
But aye whan A'm puir they bid me gang by;
Oh, poverty pairts guid company.
        Toddlin hame, an toddlin hame,
        Coudna ma love come toddlin hame?

Fair faa the guidwife, an send her guid sale,
She gies us white bannocks tae relish her ale,
Syne if her tippenny chance tae be smaa,
We'll tak a guid scour o't, an ca't awa.
        Toddlin hame, toddlin hame,
        As roond as a neep come toddlin hame.

Ma kimmer an me lays doun tae sleep,
An twa pint stoups at oor bed-feet;
An aye when we waukened we drank them dry:
What think ye o ma wee kimmer an I?
        Toddlin but an toddlin ben,
        Sae roond as ma love comes toddlin hame.

Leez me on liqor, ma toddlin dou,
Ye'r aye sae guid-humoured when ye'r weetin yer mou;
Whan sober sae soor, ye'll fecht wi a flee,
It maks a blythe nicht tae the bairns an me,
        Whan toddlin hame, toddlin hame,
        Whan roond as a neep ye come toddlin hame!

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Candon McLean <candon3 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Administrativa" 2002.10.31 (13) [E]

Hi Ron,

All I get is gibberish.  I've set my browser to receive and send in
UTF-8.  Is it a problem with Yahoo?  There are no settings for
unicode in Yahoo's email.  Or is it that I don't have the relevant
fonts installed?  I do have IPA fonts, but perhaps not the ones
you're using?

Candon

> This Unicode mode allows us to use characters we were not able to
> use
> previously (provided the reader has a Unicode font installed), such
> as
> Cyrillic ones, Greek ones (ÃŽ^ÃŽÂ»ÃŽÂ»ÃŽÂµÃŽÂ½ÃŽÂ¹ÃŽÂºÃŽÂ±), and (hopefully) IPA
> characters
> ([foÃ  'nÃ‰>tÃ‰Âªks]), perhaps even Chinese (Ã¤Â¸ÂÃ¦-?), Japanese
> (Ã¦-Â¥Ã¦oÂ¬Ã¨ÂªzÃ£ÂÂ§Ã¦>Â¸Ã£ÂÂ).  (I'm running
> a test here.)

----------

From: elsie zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Administrativa" 2002.10.31 (13) [E]

Hi Ron and all,

The Unicode works but for the Japanese and Chinese characters that I'm
assuming
you've used in the test.

Regards
Elsie Zinsser

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <admin at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Software

Candon, Elsie, Lowlanders,

This is a response to your inquiries above as well to a few that I received
privately.

Unfortunately, there is no one complete Unicode font as yet.  The most
extensive one I know about is Arial Unicode.  It includes all sorts of Asian
language characters.  Unfortunately, it can no longer be downloaded from the
Microsoft site.  Please look on your MS software installation CDs if it came
with whatever MS programs you recently got, because apparently it is not
being installed automatically with the programs due to its size.  If you
look around for long enough you might find a website that still lets you
download it (e.g., http://www.101fonts.com/site/new.htm).  Warning: this
font file is much larger than the usual ones, because it contains thousands
of characters, including the more frequently used traditional and simplified
Chinese characters (!), plus Japanese-specific ones, various Indic scripts,
Thai, Khmer, etc., as well as mathematical symbols.  So, you might want to
decide against having it if you are not halfway serious about this matter.

Some of the "special" characters will be visible in some standard fonts
also, such as Times New Roman, Verdana and Courier New, which most of you
probably already have or can download from the Microsoft site for free.  (We
are using Verdana in our "Lowlands Talk" series
[http://www.lowlands-l.net/talk/], and the Cyrillic characters for Russian
and Ukrainian are no problem there.)  However, this would not include the
Asian scripts other than Hebrew and Arabic, besides Greek and Cyrillic.
Oftentimes you must change the view mode and the font choice of your web
browser or your email interface to see whatever characters happen to be
used.  Play around and see which ones display what sorts of text, and soon
you will know what to switch to under what circumstances.  If, for instance,
you know that someone gave the Hebrew script version of a Yiddish word
besides transliteration (which should be done for the sake of politeness),
you might not want to bother changing the view mode if you cannot read
Hebrew symbols or do not care to see them.

(Candon, you can switch in Yahoo Mail as well, because it is a web mail
account, and it is your *browser* [e.g., Netscape or MS Explorer] whose
encoding and font loading choice you must set (under "View").

To learn more about how to set your browser's  language display, look under
"View" and/or "Help."  Do the same with your email programs if they are not
web-based.

There are several sites that offer more information about Unicode, e.g.,
   http://www.unicode.org/
   http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/
   http://home.att.net/~jameskass/INDEXUNI.HTM

For those of you with PCs, here's a quick review of how to load a font.

o Download a font into whatever folder you choose.
o Go to "Start" > "Setting" > "Control Panel" > "Fonts", choose "Install a
New Font"
  and direct it to the folder in which you saved the font; the font name
will show;
  select it and allow it to be installed.*

* If you know your way around the Windows Explorer program, just go to the
  folder in which you saved the font, and drag the font into the "Fonts"
folder.
  (Do a search for "fonts" if you cannot find the folder easily.)  Of
course, you
  could just as well download the file *directly* into the fonts folder.

Please feel free to contact me privately about this, but be warned that I
may not have all the answers, so you might first want to try to find them on
the web or from knowledgeable associates.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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