Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Search lick system
  • 2.1 User interface
  • 2.2 Find lick input system
  • 2.2.1 General principles
  • 2.2.2 Time signature
  • 2.2.3 Bar lines
  • 2.2.4 Chord names
  • 2.2.5 Multiple chords within a bar
  • 2.2.6 Repeats
  • 2.2.7 Examples
  3. Add lick system
• 3.1 User interface
• 3.2 Add lick input system
• 3.2.1 General principles
• 3.2.2 Time signature
• 3.2.3 Bar lines
• 3.2.4 Chords
• 3.2.5 Notes
• Pitches
• Rests
• Durations
• Accidentals
• Changing octaves
• Augmentation dots
• Ties
• 3.2.6 Tuplets
• 3.2.7 Partial measures
• 3.2.8 Syntax summary
• 3.2.9 Examples

1. Introduction

BopLand core engine is firmly based upon the GNU Lilypond.org project which offers a very high quality music typesetting system. Providing an interface for working with short single voice musical patterns, BopLand input is much simplified. It tries to imitate the process of writing music by hand, with a keyboard so that notations used while finding existing or creating new lick hand-written symbols, match as close as possible.

There is a variety of notations used by different musicians to express the same concepts. Sticking to only one point of view would be inconvenient for others. BopLand was designed to work with as many notation approaches as possible. This idea particulary concerns chord type notations, e.g. all of the following major chords are recognized and considered to be valid BopLand.org input

C, C6, C+7, Cmaj, Cmaj7, CM, CM+7, CM7, CMaj

The system is flexible enough to extend known chord types without much effort. So if the reader has any reasonable idea about how to improve notations BopLand.org uses, he is welcome to contact us by writing a message in the feedback area.

2. Search lick system

2.1 User interface

To find a lick in BopLand.org database it is necessary to specify a time and a chord sequence to look for. Once the time and chord progression are defined one can upload licks over the desired progression by clicking the "Find" button.

Any time signature in the database can be chosen from the select list named "Time". To define a chord sequence one has to type it in the text area denoted "Changes" to the left of the input field (see section 2.2 for a detailed explanaition of input syntax). Quick help on input synax is available with hyperlink "How to find examples".

There are two more input fields on the page "e-mail" and "name", which are optional. In case both of them are filled, a notification message will be sent to the e-mail provided after processing the lick by the BopLand.org team. After processing, the lick can be either completely deleted from the database or verified and be available to other users. If a name and e-mail are not provided, the lick will be processed without informing the user about the lick's destination.

2.2 Find lick input system

2.2.1 General principles

The following is the bopland search engine input summary which will be discussed in detail in subsequent sections.

• Chord progression is being input from a keyboard.
• Chords should be delimetered with one or more spaces or line breaks.
• Chord names start with capital letters.
• To alter a chord pitch place one of "b", "bb", "#", "##" right after the chord name.
• Chord type should be placed after the pitch name and accidentals without any spaces.
• Use vartical line "|" to delimit measures.
• Use percent symbol "%" to repeat previous bar changes.

2.2.2 Time signature

2.2.3 Bar lines

2.2.4 Chord names

Chord names start with one of the following capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G which correponds to la, ti, do, re, mi, fa, sol pitches respectively. Assuming that 4/4 time is selected, user input '| C |' will define progression where C chord lasts the whole bar.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | C |

The search results will contain all licks that include whole bar C chords not necessarily at the begining of the progression. The same idea is used for any combination of whole bar chords, e.g.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | G | F | E |

Right after the chord name come accidentals if any. A sharp is formed by adding '#' to the end of a chord pitch name. To set a flat append 'b' to chord pitch name.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | F# | B | Bb |

For double sharps and double flats use '##' and 'bb' respectively.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | G## | A | Cbb |

It should be however noted that these notations are very seldom and practically never used in BopLand database. To define a type of a chord, one has to append a corresponding suffix to the end of the chord pitch name.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | Dm7 | G7 | Cmaj |

If a chord pitch is altered then the chord type is appended to the accidental.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | Bbm7b5 | Eb7 | Abm7 |

2.2.5 Multiple chords within a bar

If there is more that one chord within a bar BopLand standard assumes that the chord durations are equal, so there is no need to specify the duration of each chord explicitly in cases similar to the following.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 |

However, if there were three chords within a bar with 4/4 time signature, there would appear an ambiguity, and the system would return an error. To specify duration of each chord in such situations one has to append dashes to the end of each chord name within a bar. The number of dashes must be equal to the number of hard beats a chord will sound on.

Time: 4/4 Changes: | Cm7'' Ab7' G7' | Cm7 Ab9 |

2.2.6 Repeats

Time: 4/4 Changes: | Gm7 C9 | % | Fmaj |

3. Add lick system

3.1 User interface

There are three input fields at add lick page. Two of them namely 'Name' and 'E-mail' are optional and supplied for informing the user whether his lick was submitted to public use or discarded for some reason. In case the user is not interested in getting this notification these fields may be left blank.

The text area element is used for typesetting licks. Input standard is ASCII English text.

At the moment of typing a user can not see the music. To preview his input he has to press the 'Preview' button. After that, assuming there were no syntax errors, he will be redirected to edit the lick and to check the accuracy of his input and finally submit the lick to the database. It is also possible to make corrections to the lick and preview it again from within the edit lick page.

If there occured errors during compilation of the lick, the user will be notified about them. Usually the error messages are comprehensible enough to point out the mistakes.

3.2 Add lick input system

3.2.1 General principles

The idea of input format is to make it as close to handwritten music as possible. However some notations are keyboard specific so one has to know them to add licks easily.

General input guidelines

• Note names start with small letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g.
• Chord names start with capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
• Use spaces or line breaks to delimit control sequences.
• Use vertical lines "|" to delimit bars.

3.2.2 Time signature

Time signature is the first word in the input sequence. It is formed by joining two numbers with a slash, e.g. '4/4', '3/4', '7/8' etc. If time is not present it is assumed to be 4/4 by default.

3.2.3 Bar lines

Bars are separated with vertical lines '|'.

3.2.4 Chords

Chord names are the same as in the find lick input system so the reader is refered to Section 2.2.4 for detailed information on chord notations. The following rules are specific for adding to the lick input system.

1. Each chord should precede the note it will be typed upon.
2. There should be no measures with undefined chord progression.
3. There should be no chords before the first bar.
4. If no chord is provided at the begining of a bar, previous chord is automatically suggested.

3.2.5 Notes

The following are general rules to be fullfiled while creating a lick.

• There can be no bars with no notes.
• Total duration of notes within a bar should equal the time signature.

Pitches

Each note starts with small letter denoting it's pitch name. It can be one of 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g' which corresponds to la, ti, do, re, mi, fa, sol syllables respectivelly.

Rests

Rests are represented by small letter 'r'. Rest obeys the same syntax rules as ordinary notes except for accidentals and augmentation dots.

Durations

To specify a note duration one should append to the end of note the pitch name one of the following numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 which represent numerators of the note durations.

4/4 | C c1 | c2 c4 c8 c16 c32 c64 c128 c128 |

If no duration number is provided the duration of the note is assumed to be the same as of the previous one.

4/4 | C c4 c c c | c8 c c c c2 | c c |

By default the duration of the first note is set to eighths if not defined explicitly.

Accidentals

To form a sharp or flat one should append '#' or 'b' to the note pitch name. To obtain a double sharp or double flat '##' and 'bb' symbols are used.

4/4 | C c#4 c cb c | c##8 c# c cb cbb2 |

There is no special mark for a natural sign. To set a natural note simply type its pitch name without accidentals. The system will automatically print natural if needed.

Changing octaves

Unless specially treated the first note of each lick will always be the closest note to C of the second octave. Any subsequent note will allways be as close to the previous one as possible. This notation scheme borrowed from Lilypond is also known as "relative notation". It is very fast and convinient especially for short melodic patterns. In those cases when the melody makes jumps, one can manualy raise or lower the octave by appending one or more '+' or '-' signs to a note pitch name.

4/4 | C c-4 d eb+ f | g8 f e--4 c#+++8 d--8 e+4 |

Augmentation dots

To obtain dotted note durations simply put one or more dots after the duration number.

4/4 | C a4. b4.. c8. | c-8. d16 eb+4. d#8. b8. |

Ties

A tie is created by adding a tilde '~' to the first note being tied.

4/4 | C r8 e-~ e g~ g c~ c b~ | b b d4~ d2 |

3.2.5 Tuplets

To insert a tuplet simply enclose the notes to be treated as a tuplet in square brackets. The system will automatically calculate the tuplet number and group notes.

4/4 | C r8 b [ c e g ] b2 | [ d4 db c ] [ b8 g e c b ] | [ c e [ g16 b d~ ] ] d4 r2 |

3.2.6 Partial measures

Partial measures are obtained by typing one or several notes before a first bar line of a lick. Partial measures may not contain chords.

4/4 g#8 | A7 a c# e g bb c a g | Dm7 f d a g f d a b |

3.2.7 Syntax summary

The following table explains note syntax. Control sequences like accidentals, duration, augmentation dots and ties should be typed in the same order as they appear in the table.

Note syntax

1. Note names start with one of the following letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g.
2. Rests are produced with the letter r.
3. Accidentals are formed with '#', '##', 'b' and 'bb' symbols.
4. Natural signs are inserted automatically.
5. The octave can be raised or lowered with one or several consequent '+' or '-' symbols.
6. Note duration is defined by one of the following numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256.
7. The duration number can be omitted if it is the same as the previous note.
8. Augmentation dots are obtained with one or several dots appended to the note.
9. A tie is formed by adding tilde to the note.
10. Tuplets are formed by enclosing notes in square brackets.

The next table represents chord syntax rules. Chord names should be typed in the order they appear in the table.

Cord syntax

1. Chord names start with one of the following capital letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
2. Right after the name, come accidentals '#', '##', 'b', 'bb' if any.
3. Chord types can be typed in custom form, most notations except for the very unusual will be recognized automatically.

Overall rules

1. The time signature should preceed a lick and be of the form 'number1/number2'.
2. Bar lines are formed by '|' symbol.
3. The duration of each bar should be consistent with the time signature.
4. Each chord should precede the note it will be typed on.
5. There should be no measures with an undefined chord progression.
6. There should be no chords before the first bar.
7. If no chord is provided at the begining of a bar, the previous chord is automatically assumed.