Re: ASCII Music Notation?

(Crossposted to rec.music.compose, dispite the fact that I'm showing
that I know almost nothing about music notation :)

On 16 Feb 2000 14:28:01 +0100, jan...@xs4.xs4all.nl (Jan
Nieuwenhuizen) wrote:

>Hi!
>
>We were having a small discussion going in rec.music.compose on the
>subject of ascii representation of sheet music, but we seem to be
>a bit wanting for ascii artist (see below).  Maybe there are music
>enthousiasts here?

I'll take a whack at this. It's an interesting problem. I don't know
much about music notation, though, so my ideas may not be worth all
that much.

>It's been suggested that the drawings below are too elaborate:

I agree. You can save a lot of space with some thought.

>    This tries to do too much. I wouldn't expect nice clef signs in
>    ASCII notation. Just a *representation* of clefs; merely putting
>    "g clef" in front of the staff would be fine with me. The
>    important thing is that the pitches and durations are
>    understandable.
>
>but I don't think that's the case because the clefs are not the point.
>Incidentally: `g clef' is just as wide as the elaborate symbol is, so
>that doesn't really help.

However, 'g clef' is much easier to write, even for a program. And, it
is much easier to read than a blocky ascii picture. You can also
write:

g

c
l
e
f

And only take up one line.

>Anyway, I'm very much interesed in good alternatives, maybe someone
>has something helpful to contribute; fine ascii example drawings can
>be of much use!

OK, from what I remember, we have whole notes, half notes, quarter
notes, eighth notes, and rests of all of those. Plus, I've seen big
arcs on the page (Whatever those are for) and sometimes notes are
grouped together via lines, single, double, (triple?). And sometimes
the lines are thick, sometimes thin. Something else tells me that
sometimes you can have a note with a little dot next to it, which
means 'an extra eighth' or 'an extra sixteenth' or somesuch.

Soooooo.... Here's some ideas.

Every note should fit on 1 row, and we should try to keep most things
down to 3 columns at most.

Whole note:   (*)

Half Note:    ( )

Quarter Note: (*)
                |
                |
                |

Eighth Note:  ( )
                |
                |
                |

Of course, if my coloring or whatnot is off, change it to suit real
music notation :)

What next? Rests? I've always seen these as little black boxes above a
line. I don't know how to distinguish between half, quarter, or
whatnot, but here's my ideas:
  _
--*--
  _
--~--
  _
--^--

Just a thought.

Now, to group these things together will be a bear. The I am going to
assume the worst case scenario, which is that the thickness of the
lines is important, and that there can be up to 3, all in different
thicknesses. I'm going to hope a bit and say that if the lines are
horizontal instead of slanted, everybody will still understand it.

For the thick lines, we can use ###### because that looks thick. For
the thin ones, ====== or ++++++. Basically, we need to determine
between the thick lines, the thin lines, and the actual lines on the
'paper' we are drawing on.

For the little dot, that's easy. Use a period.

Now, those arcs. You can't do that without a LOT of trouble,
especially in a program. I suggest something over the bar that looks
somewhat like this:

 ______________________
/                      \

Can't think of another way.

Lastly, the vertical lines on the bar. IIRC, there are thin ones and,
at the ends, thick ones. We can't use | because that's in the notes,
so I suggest ! or I, perhaps + or 1, whatever looks best. I personally
prefer +. For the thick ones, just use 2 +'s.

So, let's put that all together:

                 ________
                /        \
++--------|######|-----------------+
++ g      |======|                 +
++--------|------|######|----------+
++        |      |======|    _     +
++-c------|------|------|----*-----+
++ l    (*).     |      |          +  
++-e-----------(*).-----|----------+
++ f                  ( )          +
++---------------------------------+

I don't pretend that this is anything that could be played by anyone.
It's just my all-encompassing example. A programmer may need to raise
stuff above the 5 normal lines, to account for high notes. Dunno.

Anyway, there's the spewings of someone who not only likes Ascii art,
but also thinks about the limitations of outputting stuff from a
program.

--Wesley


The only stupid question is the unasked question.
And that's a good thing, because I hate stupid questions!

Related ASCII art in the Gallery

Explore these categories from our collection of 11,000+ artworks:

   ____
  |____|
  |    |
  |    |
(#)  (#)

Make your own ASCII art

Turn images, text or 3D into ASCII, or draw your own – right in your browser.