bayard-variations

These abcm2ps "decos" add support for above the staff variation-marking notation to abc.

Click here to download a zip of these files.

For years in my fiddle transcriptions I marked variations with a superscripted letter (in abc, this was "^a..."). Finally I came across that exact idea in print in Jeff Todd Titon's Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes. Titon says he "and other scholars" trace the idea back to Samuel Bayard, in his 1944 Hill Country Tunes: Instrumental Folk Music of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Bayard's notation was actually nicer, as it showed exactly which notes were varied (my crop):

After I'd been working on PostScript decorations to emulate Bayard for a while, Beáta Salamon's Magyar népzenei dallamgyűjtemény came out… and what did I find in it but beautiful Bayard-type variation notation!

These bayard-variations are my own expansion on Bayard's and Salamon's designs.

Contents

• Introduction
• Usage
• Variation decoration types
• Customization
• Included decorations
• Design your own
• Architecture
• If something goes wrong
• License

Usage

Download at least bayard-variations.fmt. Run abcm2ps with

abcm2ps INPUTFILE.abc -F bayard-variations.fmt

(See the abcm2ps readme for additional options.)

Use hbv-deco-chords.fmt to support writing guitar chords (e.g. "A") with stacked variation decorations (see below). Simply download the file in addition to bayard-variations.fmt, and uncomment (remove the line-initial % from) the first line of bayard-variations.fmt.

Variation decoration types

1. var-x

   !var-x(! y0 AAA BBB !var-x)!
   

   prints x-------, over the notes AAA BBB

   

2. var-xy

   !var-xy(! y0 AAA BBB !var-xy)!
   

   prints x, y----, over the notes and so on for var-xyz, var-xyz1, and var-xyz12

   

3. var

   !var(! y0 AAA BBB !var)!
   

   prints ,-------, over the notes

   

4. varcontinues-x

   !varcontinues-x(! y0 AAA BBB !varcontinues-x)!
   

   prints x--------- over the notes (e.g. for use when a variation extends beyond the end of a staff). varcontinues-x is intended to pair with varcontinued

   

5. varcontinues

   !varcontinues(! y0 AAA BBB !varcontinues)!
   

   prints ,--------- over the notes (e.g. for use when a variation extends beyond the end of a staff). varcontinues is intended to pair with varcontinued

   

6. varcontinued

   !varcontinued(! y0 AAA BBB !varcontinued)!
   

   prints --------, over the notes (e.g. for use when a variation started before the current staff. varcontinued is intended to pair with either varcontinues-x or varcontinues

   

Those decorations don't stack nicely with each other or with repeats (e.g. [1 ... ]). If you need to mark overlapping variations, or need to use these decorations within a repeat, use the _stack variants:

7. var-x_stack

   !var-x_stack! !var-y_stack! y0 AAA !var-y_stack)! BBB !var-x_stack)!
   

   prints y----, over AAA and, above that, x---------, over AAA BBB

   

8. varcont_stack

   !varcont_stack(! !var-x_stack! AAA !var-x_stack)! BBB !varcont_stack)!
   

   prints x----, over AAA and, over that, prints -----------, over AAA BBB

   

Notes:

• guitar chords (in "" quotations) don't look good with stacked variation markers. Use the included hbv-deco-chords.fmt to get around this - include that .fmt and replace any

   !var..._stack(! y0 "X" ... !var..._stack)!
  

  with

   !var..._stack(! y0 !X! y0 ... !var..._stack)!
  

  The first line of bayard-variations.fmt imports hbv-deco-chords.fmt, commented out. The easiest way to add !chord! support, if you don't already have a base .fmt file to import both files into, is to download both .fmts, put them in the same folder, and uncomment that first line of bayard-variations.fmt.

• I recommend always putting a y0 after the opening deco of a long decoration, e.g. after !var-x(!. It's sometimes a good idea to put one after the closing deco !var-x)! and, in the case of variation markers stacked above guitar chords, after the !X! stackable guitar deco.

Customization

I use Monaco 9 for the label and a thin 60%-black dashed line

• The font is defined before every occurrence of the postscript command show
• The thickness of the line is defined before every SLW (abcm2ps shorthand for the postscript command setlinewidth) (default: 0.5)
• The darkness of the line is defined before every non-zero setgray (default: 0.6)
• The dash is defined before every non-[] setdash (default: [3 5], which is 3px of line followed by 5px of space)

The line could be made e.g. solid and black by commenting out all setdash and setgray.

Included decorations

I've included a lot of decorations, which should cover most needs:

No referent:

• the unnamed decoration var

Single referent:

• single-letter decorations var-a to var-z
• single-letter stackable decorations var-a_stack to var-z_stack
• single-number decorations var-0 to var-9
• single-number stackable decorations var-0_stack to var-9_stack
• an asterisk decoration var-*

Two referents:

• two-letter decorations var-ab to var-yz for non-overlapping sequential pairs (e.g. var-bc, not var-ac)
• two-number decorations var-12, 23, 34, 45
• assorted other two-letter decorations I've needed (var-is, cm, be, fj, pq, bd, ei, z1)
• assorted two-letter stackable decorations I've needed (var-bc_stack, de, ef, gh, ij, jk, lm, no, pq, z1)

Three referents:

• three-letter decorations var-abc to klm (again, in non-overlapping sequential triplets - so abc and def but not bcd or cde (though in that particular case, see immediately below))
• assorted other three-letter decorations I've needed (var-bcd, cde, cgh, cdj, mno, rst, stu, tuv)
• assorted stackable three-letter decorations I've needed (var-ghi_stack, opq, stu, tuv, vwx)

More than three referents:

• some four-letter decorations I've needed (var-abcd, klmn, lmno, vwxy, wxyz)
• some stackable four-letter decorations (var-efgh_stack, fghi)
• some five-letter decorations (var-abcde, defgh, aemno)

Open-ended (no referent, or single- or multiple-referent):

• the open-ended unnamed decoration varcontinues
• single-letter open-ended decorations varcontinues-a to varcontinues-h
• stackable unnamed open-ended decoration varcons_stack
• the open-start decoration varcontinued
• stackable open-start decoration varcont_stack

Special:

• var-first decoration for a first-time-through variation
• var-last decoration for a last-time-through variation

If that doesn't meet your needs, you can always

Design your own

You'll need to add three lines per decoration, within beginps...endps:

/var-[name]{/varname ([marker text] def [1var/[2-5]vars]}!
	deco var-[name]( [5 for normal, 7 for stacking] - 17 0 0
	deco var-[name]) ["] var-[name] 17 0 0

One-Character Example: var-a

/var-a{/varname (a) def 1var}!
	deco var-a( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-a) 5 var-a 17 0 0

Two-Character Example: var-ab

/var-a{/varname (a, b) def 2vars}!
	deco var-ab( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-ab) 5 var-ab 17 0 0

Three-Character Example: var-abc

/var-abc{/varname (a, b, c) def 3vars}!
	deco var-abc( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-abc) 5 var-abc 17 0 0

Four-Character Example: var-abcd

/var-abcd{/varname(a, b, c, d) def 4vars}!
	deco var-abcd( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-abcd) 5 var-abc 17 0 0

Five-Character Example: var-abcde

/var-abcde{/varname (a, b, c, d, e) def 5vars}!
	deco var-abcde( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-abcde) 5 var-abcde 17 0 0

Custom Example: var-custom

/var-custom{/varname (a. bc!!) def 3vars}!
	deco var-custom( 5 - 17 0 0
	deco var-custom) 5 var-custom 17 0 0

Custom Stackable Example: var-custom2

/var-custom_stack{/varname (a. bc!!) def 3vars}!
	deco var-custom_stack( 7 - 17 0 0
	deco var-custom_stack) 7 var-custom_stack 17 0 0

Note: for custom variables, by default your marker text can be one, four seven, ten, or thirteen characters long (using 1var, 2vars, 3vars, 4vars, and 5vars, respectively). For marker text of other lengths you'll need to customize the variable <adjust>, which determines the horizontal placement of the marker line's start.

Architecture

Here's the logic

1. Named, bracketing at end
    deco var-[x[y[z[1[2]]]]][_stack](
    and
    deco var-[x[y[z[1[2]]]]][_stack])
     depend on
     /var-x
      depends on
      /[#]vars
       depends on
       /variation

2. Unnamed, bracketing at start and end
    deco var(
     depends on
     \unnamedvar

3. Open, named, extending a little further right than the default
    deco varcontinues-[x[y[z[1[2]]]]](
    and
    deco varcontinues-[x[y[z[1[2]]]]])
     depend on
     /varconts-a
      depends on
      /1contvar

4. Open, unnamed, extending a little further right than the default
    deco varcontinues(
    and
    deco varcontinues)
     depend on
     /varcontsunnamed

5. Open at left, extending a little further left than the default
    deco varcontinued(
    and
    deco varcontinued)
    and
    deco varcont_stack(
    and
    deco varcont_stack)
     depend on
     /varcontd

If something goes wrong

bayard-variations not working for you? Check to see if it's a known issue. If it isn't, add it!

I'll mention one bug in particular: sometimes the decos may draw below the staff instead of above it. Just add I: dynamic 1 to each tune or, to cover the entire abc file, at the top of the file. I do this in the bayard-variations demo, and it's documented in issue #1.

 

License

bayard-variations by Henry Bley-Vroman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with a human rights condition from Hippocratic License 2.1. Persons interested in using or adapting this work for commercial purposes should contact the author.

For the full text of the license, see the LICENSE file.