USER MANUAL

Calling the program

    ./deckmyn "`cat deckmyn.c`" "`cat musicfile`" > output.pbm

Then display output.pbm.

This minimalistic music notator expects two command line arguments. The first is the font description embedded in the source code. Notice that you don’t pass the file name, but the actual content as one long character string! If you want to define your personal music font, you can of course do so. The file layout must be exactly the same as deckmyn.c though, only the locations of space (" ") may differ.

The second argument is the actual music. Again it is one long string, not a file name. But it is possible to save your music in a file, of course.

Output should be redirected to a file. Afterwards, this file can be visualised with various viewers.

Music input

Every element in the music is given by a string of exactly 3 characters. Any violation of this will result in the rest of the music being interpreted in some randomly wrong way. Notice that in a file, the newline is also a character! Therefore, when preparing music in a file, care should be taken that the last musical element of a line is only 2 characters!

1. Basic notes: A single note is input by a letter (in the range [A-Ga-g]) followed by a duration (1, 2, 4 or 8) and possibly a dot (.). The notes cover 2 octaves, from C (lowest) to b (highest). The possible durations are 1 (whole note), 2 (half note), 4 (quaver), 8 (semi-quaver). So a dotted quaver A followed by a semi quaver G is input as "A4.G8 ".

2. Rests: A rest is given by the letter r followed by a duration (1, 2, 4 or 8).

3. Bar lines: There are three possible bar line types: single (": "), double (":: ") and final (":; ").

4. Accidentals: Chromatic changes (sharp, flat, natural) are entered separately from the note that follows them! They are a three-character sequence by themselves. The first character is the chromatic change [+-=]. The second is the pitch at which it should be drawn. Thus "+G G4 " will draw a G sharp quaver. Notice that these signs do not necessarily have to be followed by a note. "+f +c +g B2 " is perfectly legal.

5. Space (formatting): To manually change the spacing of the music, you can add space between different musical elements. This is given by an s followed by the amount of space. "s3 " is the space taken by one note. This length is given in 1 character. However, to get a value larger than 9, you can just continue along the ASCII table. So "sz " gives you quite a lot of space on a staff. "s0 " is not only meaningless, it can cause nasty results.

6. New staff: A token "x " signifies to start a new staff of music. A music staff may never be empty! Even if you just put some blank space ("s1 "), you should always have an entry for every staff. "x x " may give nasty results.

   All staves in the output are extended to the length of the longest staff. To have nicely formatted music, though, you will probably have to add spaces manually.

7. Time signatures: A time signature is given by [m][234][234]. For example, "m24" will give you a two fourth signature. Notice that there are only three available numbers. Especially “6” and “8” are dearly missed.

8. Clef: The clef (G or F) can only be changed at the beginning of the music input. If the music starts with "KF ", the music will be written in a bass clef. "K" followed by any other letter will just default to a standard G clef.

Examples

Blank music paper (with G clef):

    ./deckmyn "`cat deckmyn.c`" "sz sa x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 "> blank.pbm

With an F clef:

    ./deckmyn "`cat deckmyn.c`" "KF sz sa x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 x  s1 "> blank.pbm

Notice how only the first staff (or any staff) needs to have the full length.

Some files with well-known melodies are included as examples.

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