pennsicdance: A suggestion : "ABC" format for distributing the music.

[Maugorn at aol.com]

A friend of mine has recently turned me on to this musical
notation system called ABC.

It lets you type music onto the computer with a standard
keyboard, and then stores the files as ASCII files (taking up very
little space).   It lets you input music basically as fast as
you can type.

Now here's the beauty of it:

You can download all kinds of Freeware that then convert
these simple little text files into regular music notation
for printing.

But wait there's more:
There's other freeware that you can download that
converts these text files into MIDI commands that you
can then play back and hear on your computer.  There's
full MIDI implementations, and I think versions that can
play on a PC's built in speaker.


Think about it kids.    Imagine downloading or emailing
a text file that's only a few KB/song (for the whole
arrangement) and getting the entire Pennsic Pile to fit 
on a floppy disk.  The converted  MIDI files or graphics
files, of course take up much more room, but you wouldn't
have to send or download those if you have the conversion
programs.

Someone could send out a short email containing a 
whole new arrangement for "test drives" and people 
like me who play mostly by ear don't even have to *read* 
the darn things, we could hear them.

Imagine the savings in postage, modem time, everything.

Now how much would you pay.

Don't answer 'cause it's all free.  Freeware I tell you!

The pain in the butt factor of it (inevitable, I guess)
is that someone(s) would have to type all of these
tunes in, check, them, convert them and playtest
them to see that it works, blah blah blah.   But once
this step is done, it's all too easy to distribute a 
whole dance collection on one not very long email 
attachment.

But I find it an attractive option nonetheless.
I don't have the appropriate URLs at hand at
the moment, but I can and will post them in
the next couple of days,  unless the hordes
start shouting me down as to why this is a 
bad idea.   

Maugorn

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