genonamestr-pmb

Parser for the genonamestr music notation format. Allows to express a melody as a human-readable text.

Purpose: I needed a method to store a melody in a text file, so my first idea was to just write the note names. In school I learned the German names, so in genonamestr the pinao key left of C is called H, not B.

The name is just an abbreviation for "GErman NOte NAmes MElody STRing".

API

This module exports one function:

parseGeNoNaMeStr(melody[, opt])

Translates a string melody into an array of music events, with optional options object opt.

Supported options, and their defaults:

• octaveOffset (integer, default: 0): Which octave the note names refer to. Zero means Helmholtz pitch notation, so uppercase C means MIDI note 36, lowercase c means MIDI note 48.
• noteDura (float, default: some small number): Default duration for how long a note is to be played, in seconds.
• noteGapFrac (float, default: some small number): Default duration for a pause (silence) after each note, in units of 1 noteDura.
• parseLimit (integer, default: 0): How many melody parts to parse. Zero means "all parts".
• volume (float, default: 1): Initial volume, as a fraction [0..1].

The melody string may consist of any combination of:

• Whitespace: Space, Tab, CR, LF. They're ignored.
• Note name: Any letter A-H or a-h, optionally followed by # (U+0023 number sign).
  • Grammar-wise, a number sign is allowed after any of these letters, but the parser will only accept it for C, D, F and G, because the other combinations can be expressed with just letters: E#→F, A#→B, B#→H, H#→c, etc.
  • There's a special additional note name ¢ (U+00A2 cent sign) which is just above h (initially, MIDI note 60). There's no ¢#.
  • There's a special additional note name , (U+002C comma) which is silent, so it's a pause.
  • Duration of a note can be extended by appending … and an optional number num to its name. num can be integer or float, and it cannot have a sign or an exponent. If num is missing or zero, it defaults to 1. The note duration will be extended by num units of noteDura, so its effective duration should be (num+1) * noteDura. This has no effect on noteGapFrac calculations.
• Comment: A number sign (#) that isn't part of a note name, followed by any amount of characters that are not U+000A line feed. Comments are ignored.
• Number tweak: A tweak marker (listed below), optionally followed by a number num. (Sign optional, decimal point optional, no exponent.) If the number is omitted, 0 (zero) is assumed, and for some tweaks, zero means to use the default value. Supported tweak markers:
  • <: Move note name range num octaves to the left (lower pitch). (default: 1)
  • >: Move note name range num octaves to the right (higher pitch). (default: 1)
  • <>: Reset the note name range to Helmholtz, then move it num octaves to the right (higher pitch).
  • ~: Set noteDura to num seconds. (default: default noteDura)
  • ~×: Multiply noteDura by num. (default: 1)
  • ~…: Set noteGapFrac to num.
  • ^: Set volume to num.
  • ^×: Multiply volume by num.

Usage

from test/usage.js:

var genonamestr = require('genonamestr-pmb'), melody,
  cN = 'note', cP = 'pause', cG = 0.125;

melody = '~0.25 ~…0.5 Ba…, ^.5 C…2h,… >>h ^×.5<>h ^<>-1h';
equal.lists(genonamestr(melody), [
  { t: cN, name: 'B', midiKey: 47,  dura: 0.25, vol: 1,     gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'a', midiKey: 57,  dura: 0.5,  vol: 1,     gap: cG },
  { t: cP,                          dura: 0.25,             gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'C', midiKey: 36,  dura: 0.75, vol: 0.5,   gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'h', midiKey: 59,  dura: 0.25, vol: 0.5,   gap: cG },
  { t: cP,                          dura: 0.5,              gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'h', midiKey: 83,  dura: 0.25, vol: 0.5,   gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'h', midiKey: 59,  dura: 0.25, vol: 0.25,  gap: cG },
  { t: cN, name: 'h', midiKey: 47,  dura: 0.25, vol: 0,     gap: cG },
]);

Known issues

• needs more/better tests and docs

License

ISC