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Topic: Swing wish list item (Read 5353 times) previous topic - next topic

Swing wish list item

Noteworthy is wonderful, have been a user since 1.20b (I think). My one main wish list item remaining is:
could you please incorporate a "swing" switch, i.e. playing eighth notes in a 2::1 ratio.
I currently go through the pain of doubling-up the first note with a tie, then making a triplet out of the three notes.
I realise that timing measured in thirds is tricky with computers based upon binary ticks but I think the trick would be:
make a quarter note = 3 ticks, create a "tick tempo" of +50% Tempo,
make the "odd numbered" eighth notes = 2 ticks, "even numbered" eighth notes = 1 tick, a quarter note = 3 ticks,
[the ticks would have to be subdivisible by powers of two, to accommodate sixty-fourths, etc]
but hide all of this behind the GUI. [This approach is extendable to support any swing ratio, e.g. 3:2, with the right arithmetic]
Exporting to MIDI would be tricky (see what happens when you export triplets)
but this could be overcome if implemented as a "playback-time" interpreter

For myself, I would gladly pay my licence fee over again for this one enhancement! [I'd even code it if I could]
FYI my primary use of NWC is to assist learning the saxophone and jazz rhythms. I play much better when I know what it should sound like.

Is anybody else willing to apply a bit of pressure here?

Re: Swing wish list item

Reply #1 –
I don't know how much pressure this is, but I've seen ABC playback programs that can do what you want NWC to, in the way it should be done. One example is Henrik Norbeck's ABCMUS,at http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abcmus/

(FYI: ABC is an ascii format for notation, much use by TeX people; see http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/ )

The swing style can be set as a ratio for each note. For instance, a jig in 6/8 time, can be set to play back with the ratio 13:11:12 for 1/8:s. That is a very slight lengthening of the first note in each group of three 1/8 notes, at the expense of the second note. It *does* sound better like that.

In your example, the "swing" would be set as 2:1 for 1/8s.

Once you're implementing this, the next step would be irregular rhythms. (That too, can be set in Henrik's package)

This occurs for instance in a style of playing polskas in Sweden and Norway. The 3/4-rhythm has a "long two", the second beat comes earlier than in an even 3/4-rhythm. The beat length would be something like 3:5:4 for 1/4-notes.

I envision the swing/beat settings as an extension to the time signature. Not necessarily printed (I don't know of any standard).

I don't agree that there would have be a problem with MIDI export. But import of a "swinged" MIDI file definitely would be.

By the way, an import/export of ABC files would be nice. Of course, there are complications. An ABC file can contain many tunes. I suppose one would have to choose which tune(s) to import. NWC also supports many things that ABC doesn't: chords with split duration, multiple parts and clefs etc, so export wouldn't always work. On the other hand, ABC supports quadruplets, quintuplets and so on. Still, the vast majority of abc-tunes could easily be imported.

Re: Swing wish list item

Reply #2 –
I love ALL those suggestions. I think it comes down to a generic set of instructions:
"Play duplets with THIS time ratio, triplets with THIS time ratio, etc. etc." and simply becomes an attribute of the song.
I don't think it would be TOO hard to implement. Simply as the NWC-Midi converter is working out this next note and calculating note-up events, it would simply need to calculate a different note-up event time.

What a lot of things I need to add to the wish list.

Andrew

Re: Swing wish list item

Reply #3 –
What _I_ want is the abilty to set a 4/4 stave against a 12/8
and have them both play back together in time. It should be
simply a matter af setting a flag to indicate that all bars
have the same duration of elapsed time ie a dotted crotchet
in this staff = a single crotchet in this staff.

I had to set a song like this where two counter-melodis were sung together.
One was in 12/8 and the other in 4/4. I finished up putting both in
12/8 which meant dotting just about everything in one staff.

Re: Swing wish list item

Reply #4 –
I too would like my arrangements to swing - I have to export to other software to achieve this.
This feature would require quite a bit of engineering by the NWC team.
It seems that MIDI data is stored strictly as displayed unlike some other software where the MIDI data is stored in raw form and the display is quantized according to user needs.
It might not be easy to implement if this is the case.
If you think NWC can achieve this - add the request to the wish list