Re: ASCII Music Notation?

In article <crZq4.24$kD3...@sapphire.mtt.net>,
Shaun Mead  <sha...@ns.sympatico.caREMOVE, CAPITALIZED, TEXT> wrote:

>I thought about this once, and I realize is isn't very easy. I'll give it a
>crack at a small staff.
>
>    Moderato
>   _________________________________________________________________________\
> |:____|\_________b___/______.____.__|__________._______.---.__.____________:|
> |:____|/__4____|.____$______|____|__|__________|\__-,__|___|__|\_______..__:|
> |:___/|___4____'`____/______|____|__|__________|___/___|___|__|\___""______:|
> |:__('|)___________________@|___(|__|__#( )___@|._____@|__@|_@|____________:|
>      "|                              mp                                    /

>Here's hoping you'll find some use from these suggestions.

Thanks for all who sent in suggestions!  (Too bad a few of them were signed,
we can't use those.)  Over the weekend I've prepared a first minimal
version of an ascii backend to LilyPond.  There are now two ascii staff
sizes; height 5 and 9 character.  For each size, there's a font of ascii
characters: mf/as5.af an mf/as9.af.  The LilyPond music typesetter
generates the AsciiScript typesetting recipe.  This AsciiScript
is then plotted by a simple external program: scripts/as2text.scm.

Lots of work still needs to be done.  I haven't had the time to get the
placement of most characters right.  The ascii font files are to be
considered very much work-in-progress, but you can already have a look 
if you want.

You can pick up a copy of GNU LilyPond at:

   ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/GNU/LilyPond/v1.3/lilypond-1.3.25.tar.gz

or see

   http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen/lilypond


Greetings,

Jan.


Here are some results:

$ echo "\time 4/4; g''1 g2 g4. g8" | lilypond -f as -i init-as5.fly - | as2text 
GNU LilyPond 1.3.25.jcn1
[..]
Parsing...
[..]
Interpreting music...[3]elapsed time: 0.08 seconds
Preprocessing elements... [./afm/as5.afm][./afm/as-number1.afm]
Calculating column positions... 
[0]
paper output to <stdout>...

            |\                                              
        ----|/------------------|--------------------------|
        ---/|-------------------|-|----------|--------|\---|
        --/-|_---4--------------|-|----------|.-------|-)--|
        -|-/|-\--4-O------------|o|---------*|-------*|----|
        --\_|_/-----------------|--------------------------|
          *_|                                               
                                                        lily


$ lilypond -f as -i init-as.ly standchen-as9.ly
[...]
paper output to standchen-as9.as...
$ as2text standchen-as9
as2text - LilyPond version 1.3.25.jcn1


            _             Moderato                                            
           / \                                                                
           | /                                                                
   /-------|/---------___--------------------------------------------         
   ||      |         '   )                          |                         
   ||-----/|------------(---------------------------|----------------|\       
   ||    / |   |     .___)__                        |  __            | \      
   ||---/--|---|)---------\-----###################-|--\-----|\------|  |     
   ||  |  .+._         _        |     |   |   |   | |        | \     |  |     
   ||--|-(-|--|-------/-|-------|-----|---|---|---|-|--------|--|----| /      
   ||   \__|_/       /__|_      | |   |   |   |   | |        |  ||   |        
   ||------|---------___|_------|-|)(*)---|-(*)---|-|--------|-/-|)(*)        
   ||    *_|                    |     |   |   |   | |        |       |        
   ||                         (*)  -(*)-(*)-(*)-(*) |     -(*)    -(*)        
   ||                           |    .    |  .    | |     |  |      .         
   ||                         --|      -- |    -- | |     |)*)                
   ||                         (*)       (*)     (*) |       .                 
   ||                                               |                         
   ||                          .         .       .  |                         
   ||                                               |                         
   ||                        |                      |                         
   ||----___----------___----|----------------------|-------------------------
   ||   /   \ .      '   )   |                      |     |                  |
   ||---\*---|----------(----|-------------\--------|-----|-------------\----|
   ||       / .      .___)   |             <        |     |             <    |
   ||------/-----------------|-------------(--------|-----|-------------(----|
   ||     /    |       _   (O)                      |     |                  |
   ||----/-----|)-----/-|----|----------------------|-|---|------------------|
   ||  _/            /__|_   |                      | |)(O)                  |
   \|----------------___|_---|----------------------|-----|------------------|
                             |                            |                   
                           --|                         -- |                   
                             |                            |                   
                           (O)                         -- |                   
                                                      |   |                   
                                                      |)(O)                   
                                                                              
                                                                          lily


-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan...@gnu.org> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org