RE: MusicTex etc.

[Chris Pierce <pierccm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

" B.G. de Boer" <boerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm very much interested in the MusicTex- sources, but you forget to mention the
>anonymous FTP login name and password, so I couldn't get it yet. Is there also a
>kind of manual available for MusicTex on that FTP-site?

Anonymous FTP login name is 'Anonymous', and the password is your
e-mail address.

Yes, there should be a manual with the MusicTeX sources.  The file
will be called MusicDoc.PS.  Which is the ready to print postscript
file(the MusicDoc.TeX file is also included).

>
>I think its a good idea to use ordinary musical notation for comunicating riffs,
>after all, you can comunicate almost anything in it, which I cannot say about any
>of the harp-notations I know of. It's also not very difficult to learn or to
>decipher if you're not very familiar with it; it is actually a very logical
>system. Now the only remaining problems are: is MusicTex powerful enough, how
>difficult is it to master and how much resources does it take? The availibility
>seems not a very big problem to me, because everybody with an access to either
>Bitnet or Internet is very likely to have access to other computer resources as
>well.

YES, MusicTeX is MORE than Powerful enough. BUT it is also difficult
to learn (looks like it to me anyway).  BUT if the person trying to
use it is already a strong TeX user, then the difficulty level will be
MUCH less to learn MusicTeX.

>
>But a bigger disadvantage is, I think, the difficulty of correctly writing 
>music.
>Especially blues-music with its very special timing and its use of different
>ways of making an instrument sound, seems to me extraordinarily difficult to
>write in a way that someone reading a riff will reproduce it correctly.

I agree it will be difficult.  I read music, but not very well.  So
I'll be one of the people having a hard time with reading other
people's music.  I don't even know if we will be able to use MusicTeX
as the list-wide distribution 'packager.'  Not everyone will have the
equipment, space, knowledge or otherwise to be able to use
MusicTeX....  Maybe it will help some people though.

>
>Anyway, it seems worthwhile to try.

That's what I thought.  Let's see how it goes.

Chris