ECOLM - An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music

Basic TabCode - others

Remaining elements of basic TabCode can be divided into:

Time signatures and mensuration signs

Time signature indicators are introduced in TabCode with an M and are enclosed in parentheses. Time signatures and mensuration signs may be seen as being constructed from a small set of basic symbols. Firstly, there are integers, most familiar in the classical number over number format (i.e. 3/4, etc.) and, secondly, there are C shapes (represented in TabCode as C), backwards C shapes (represented as D) and circles (O).

These latter, mensural notation signs may be modified by the addition of a central dot or a slash (represented in TabCode as . and / respectively and following immediately after their symbols.

These symbols may appear on their own in a source:

Simple time signature

In which case, the TabCode would simply be M(3), or they may appear one above the other:

More complex time signature

In which case, both the symbols are given and separated by :, the above example being coded as M(C.:3)

In cases where symbols are consecutive, the form is the same, with the colon replaced by a semicolon - M(C.;3)

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Barlines

|Normal barline
|| Double barline
|: or ||: Right-handed repeat bar/double bar
:| or :|| Simple left-handed repeat bar/double bar
:|: or :||: Double-sided repeat bar/double bar
|=Dashed barline
|0Non-counting barline
|=0Non-counting dashed barline

First and second time bars are part of the full TabCode. Details on these may be found here.

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System and page breaks

A system break is encoded as {^} and a page break as {>} {^}

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Comments

Comments or any other text that does not fall within the main TabCode notation system should be placed between curly brackets: { }.

Because some comment material is parsed (e.g. System and page breaks), it is recommended that comments consist only of to alphanumeric characters and basic punctuation (commas and full stops).

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