WELCOME TO 
  THE CHORD LINE EDITOR README TEXT!
    by Tom Small.

These "readme" notes pertain to the computer
program CLE-1A.EXE, an editor of musical
tablatures for guitar and similar instruments,
available as a free download at
popcorncinema.com. And for further
explanation, please have a look at my book,
Jazz Harmony for Guitar, which is also
available at popcorncinema.com.

CLE-1A.exe is from my working program
CLE-89c.BAS, December, 2007. (To see the
program's current version name, use command
</>, which means to press the "/" key.) 
(Compared to CLE-89B, CLE-89c corrects
some problems with the enhamonics.)

Documentation is in CLE-MAN1.pdf, which is in
the "CLE" folder. A shorter version of the
documentation is CLE-ENG1.TXT, or, in
Portuguese, CLE-POR1.TXT. Documentation in
German, Spanish and French is on the website.

The downloaded file must first be "unzipped"
or "extracted" because it has been compressed
to make it smaller. 

To install the program, put the CLE folder on
your "c:\" drive, like this: "c:\CLE". Click
on "c:\CLE\CLE-1A.EXE" to start the program.
To completely uninstall the program, erase
c:\CLE\; to put it on another computer, copy
the folder to the other computer. You may make
as many copies as you like, and you can click
on the ".exe" file repeatedly for duplicate
windows (they are fast to load). 

You can create a shortcut for the program on
your desktop. Click the ".exe" file, press
<ALT>, and drag the shadowed image beyond the
border.

You should expect to be warned with various
prompts when you download an ".exe" type file.
You are being asked if the party from which
the file is sent is trustworthy. It is a
question that would be better asked of large
corporations, rather than lone inventors like
myself!

The program runs in any tuning  for
instruments of 4, 6 or 7 strings, on a PC-type
computer. It runs in a DOS window, which is
supported by Linux and Microsoft products.

(DOS, that wonderful technology interface,
apparently cannot be run as a full-screen
display in the latest operating systems, or so
I've heard. And they call it, "progress"!)

The output of the program is a plain text
file; the program does not produce sounds. The
point is, whatever other devices you are using
to produce sound, an editor like this will
still be helpful in the preparation.

Included with the Chord Line Editor download
is the "Tablature Listing Program", TLP-
Q4.EXE. It produces tablature listings of any
or all the chords specified in the "Catalogue
Sequence", a document in SAV\DOCS. TLP is also
for any tuning and instruments of 4, 6 or 7
strings. It's only documentation is self-
contained.

Finally, I have added the little
program,"COLORBAS.EXE", that I wrote along the
way, and have always found pleasant to return
to. It displays foreground and background
colors, by number, for a DOS window.

I have included in the download, at CLE\ETU\,
the first of my own compositions. They are all
for a tuning of all major thirds, which I call
"Augmented Tuning". The program adopts the
tuning and number of strings from the file it
reads, but can also be made to default to the
tuning of your choice. 

To create music with your own tuning, see the
documentation, at "INSTRUMENTS AND TUNINGS".
Alternately, find the appropriate file in
CLE\OKD, and write it with a new name.
Commands <f> and <p> change the filename and
select a path. 

Here are the contents of c:\CLE\OKD:

 ALLFORMS.6A
  A list of all non-excluded chord forms.

 MYF_6A.6A, MYF_6A.TXT
   Favorite chords for 6-string
   Augmented Tuning

 MYF_6S.6S,  MYF_6S.TXT
   Favorite chords for guitar in
   standard tuning.

 MYF_7AEB.7A, MYF_7AEB.TXT,
 MYF_7AKC.7A, MYF_7AKC.TXT,
 MYF_7AKG.7A, MYF_7AKG.TXT.
   Favorite chords for 7-string guitar in 
   Augmented Tuning, (Eb,G,B,Eb,G,B,Eb),
   in the keys of Eb, C and G.

 MYF_7SEB.7S, MYF_7SEB.TXT,
 MYF_7SKC.7S, MYF_7SKC.TXT,
 MYF_7SKG.7S, MYF_7SKG.TXT.
   Favorite chords for 7-string guitar in 
   standard tuning, (A,E,A,D,G,B,E), 
   in the keys of Eb, C and G.

 MYF_CGDA.4V, MYF_CGDA.TXT
   Favorite chords for 4 strings
   tuned C,G,D,A.

 MYF_DGBE.4S, MYF_DGBE.TXT
   Favorite chords for 4 strings
   tuned D,G,B,E.

 MYF_GCEA.4S, MYF_GCEA.TXT
   Favorite chords for 4 strings
   tuned G,C,E,A.

 MYF_GDAE.4V, MYF_GDAE.TXT
   Favorite chords for 4 strings
   tuned G,D,A,E.

 The T1 files load a single line with the
 tuning suggested by the suffix. Copy one
 of these files to c:\CLE\OKD\CLE to make
 it the default on startup:
   T1.6A, T1.6S, T1.7A, T1.7S, T1_CGDA.4V,    
   T1_DGBE.4S, T1_GCEA.4S, T1_GDAE.4V.

To restore the program to its initial startup
state (and Augmented Tuning), erase the file,
"c:\CLE\OKD\CLE".

Besides my own compositions, I have included a
variety of musical files, in SAV and RES, I
find of interest. They are mostly in Augmented
Tuning, and are partly explained in my book.
You must use your operating system to access
folders other than the six built-in to the
program: OKD, JRN, RES, MOD, ETU and SAV.


I now recommend for small print, the use of "T"
in a chord name to mean it has three pitches.
But in large printing, I prefer the hyphen. I
recommend the use of the letters V, N, I, U,
and M to represent the scale parts b2, b3, b5,
+5, and h7 respectively. Using these, 4-pitch
chord inversions can always be expressed with
only four characters. This matters with file
names, which are no longer than eight characters.

And, in great peril of talking too long, let me
go on to say as to how I have been developing
this idea for years and so forth, and although
the labor was not slight, it remains a work
happily taken on, and regretfully put aside.
What pleases me about my creation is that
it has evolved into a purely clerical system.
Thus, it has become a tool equally applicable
to any style of tablature music. 

(end)