Mystery 'k' in legacy ABC transcriptions

[Roger Hare]

I'm currently working on a 'legacy' collection of tunes in ABC format, editing them and 'adding value' to suit my own needs.

 

I've encountered several instances of tunes in which there are occurrences of a mysterious 'k' in the music.

 

As far as I can see, 'k' is not one of the 'official' single character abbreviations for an ABC decoration, and it is not present as a user-defined decoration in the ABC file as downloaded. I wondered if it's a known 'feature' of a now long-dead piece of ABC software (I'm an EasyABC user)?

 

It has no effect on either the appearance of the score, or on the playback. I'm strongly tempted to simply delete them, at the same time I'm always a little reluctant to take such a drastic step.

 

Does anyone have any idea what this 'k' could mean? I included the code for a tune which has these 'k's which are present in bars 1, 2 and 3. 'u' and 'v' are also present, but that's fine - they are abbreviations for !upbow! and !downbow!...

 

X:16
T:All the Rage
%Rudimentary accompaniment chords generated by ABCMus, setting 0.
M:2/2
L:1/8
Q:1/4=130
R:Reel
K:Gmaj
%I don't know what the 'k's are for. RJH
ud |: "G" vkg2 vdB kg2 dB | "G" vg2 vfg afdf | "G" kg2 dB kg2dB | "Em" .e(gf)(a g2) z2 :|
|: "G" vBcdB cBAG | "C" FGAB {d}c2 BA | "G" BcdB cBAG |1 "G" (FA)DF G2 d2 :|2 "D" (FA)DF G2 z2 |]

 

Thanks.

 

Edit: Oops! Sorry! I see this has gone into 'Instrument construction and repair'. It was meant for 'Teaching and learning'. I don't know if the moderators can move it to its proper location. Sorry!

Edited October 20, 2024 by Roger Hare

[John Wild]

As far as I know, K is the symbol for the key signature only. I have not come across it used anywhere else.

Does removing the K's make any difference to the resulting score.

[David Barnert]

4 minutes ago, John Wild said:

As far as I know, K is the symbol for the key signature only. I have not come across it used anywhere else.

Does removing the K's make any difference to the resulting score.

 

But these are lower case k’s. I have just searched through several abc standards and draft standards from different eras (v1.6, v1.76, v2.0, v2.1, v2.2) and found no reference to or example of a lower case k in the body of a tune. I remember using an even older version of abc (v1.2?) back in the day but cannot find it anywhere on my computer, the web or the internet archive.

[Roger Hare]

4 hours ago, John Wild said:

As far as I know, K is the symbol for the key signature only. I have not come across it used anywhere else.

Does removing the K's make any difference to the resulting score.

Nope - no difference whatsoever...

4 hours ago, David Barnert said:

But these are lower case k’s. I have just searched through several abc standards and draft standards, etc...

Just what I did, though I didn't search through as many documents as you. I came to the same conclusion.

 

I think I'm just going to delete them - or ask the original transcriber (if I can find him...).

 

Thank you folks!

[David Barnert]

4 hours ago, Roger Hare said:

... or ask the original transcriber (if I can find him...).

 

If you do, let us know!

[Michael Eskin]

Based on on the context of the tune, maybe they were someone's shortcut for a cut? 

abcjs reports them as ignored characters.

[Roger Hare]

4 hours ago, Michael Eskin said:

[1] Based on on the context of the tune, maybe they were someone's shortcut for a cut?

 

[2] abcjs reports them as ignored characters.

[1] Ah! Thank you! That's a possibility which hadn't occurred to me, but as the 'k's don't appear in the score/sound on playback, it would only make 'sense' if the transcriber (or whoever) were 'reading the music' directly from the ABC code? I know some folks do this?

 

[2] I hadn't noticed before because the 'error flag' in EasyABC has a very low profile in the lower left corner of the display, but I now see that abcm2ps reports them as 'Bad character'...

 

I think these 'Bad characters' may be toast...

Edited October 21, 2024 by Roger Hare

[DaveRo]

If you wanted to preserve them, in case you discovered their meaning, you could wrap them in a remark:

[r:k] or [r:cut?]

[Roger Hare]

23 hours ago, DaveRo said:

If you wanted to preserve them, in case you discovered their meaning, you could wrap them in a remark:

[r:k] or [r:cut?]

That one had passed me by. Thank you for drawing my attention to it!

 

My ultimate aim is to simplify my ABC code, so I'll ditch these 'k's once I'm sure they don't do anything, but that's a useful stop-gap till I'm sure. Thanks again...

Edited October 22, 2024 by Roger Hare

[Randy Stein]

Maybe it's kosher 

[Roger Hare]

2 hours ago, Randy Stein said:

Maybe it's kosher 

Hah! I was just literally a few minutes ago looking at a large selection of Klezmer tunes wondering how the hell I'm going to get my head around all those weird key signatures. I can report that nope - there ain't a 'k' in sight, so I guess it's not 'kosher'? 

 

These 'ks' are headed for the ash-can of history - I've only seen them in one place...

 

Thank you for the suggestion though - it made me laugh out loud - which I needed as it's a grey old day here in South Manchester...🙂

Edited November 1, 2024 by Roger Hare