Generate the names of the keys on a piano

Question

On a standard 88 key piano, each key has a scientific name.

The first three keys are A0, B♭0, and B0. The keys then proceed through C1, D♭1, D1, E♭1, E1, F1, G♭1, G1, A♭1, A1, B♭1, B1, and start over again at C2. This continues up through B7, and the final key is C8.

Any flat can instead be written as a sharp of the preceding note, e.g. D♭4 can also be written C♯4. If necessary, you can write "D♭4" as "Db4".

Your program should build an ordered sequence (array, list, vector, etc.) containing the key names (as strings, symbols, or some similar data structure) in order.

Program length should be measured in characters, to avoid penalizing people who properly generate ♯ or ♭ rather than # or b. However, Unicode recoding is forbidden.

Answer 1

Bash shell script (58)

echo {8..0}{B,♭B,A,♭A,G,♭G,F,E,♭E,D,♭D,C}|rev|cut -b40-410

If you do not have rev, you can instead use tac -rs. at a cost of five characters.

Bending the rules, I can subtract thirteen characters (for a score of 45):

echo {8..0}{B,♭B,A,♭A,G,♭G,F,E,♭E,D,♭D,C}|rev

If you really need a bash array, add six characters to the score (for a score of 64):

a=(`echo {8..0}{B,♭B,A,♭A,G,♭G,F,E,♭E,D,♭D,C}|rev|cut -b40-410`)

Answer 2

GolfScript, 60 57 characters

"A BbB C DbD EbE F GbG Ab"88,{1$2<@2>1$+\{8%},@9+12/+}%\;

The snippet produces the following array (see here):

["A0" "Bb0" "B0" "C1" "Db1" "D1" "Eb1" "E1" "F1" "Gb1" "G1" "Ab1" 
"A1" "Bb1" "B1" "C2" "Db2" "D2" "Eb2" "E2" "F2" "Gb2" "G2" "Ab2" 
"A2" "Bb2" "B2" "C3" "Db3" "D3" "Eb3" "E3" "F3" "Gb3" "G3" "Ab3" 
"A3" "Bb3" "B3" "C4" "Db4" "D4" "Eb4" "E4" "F4" "Gb4" "G4" "Ab4" 
"A4" "Bb4" "B4" "C5" "Db5" "D5" "Eb5" "E5" "F5" "Gb5" "G5" "Ab5" 
"A5" "Bb5" "B5" "C6" "Db6" "D6" "Eb6" "E6" "F6" "Gb6" "G6" "Ab6" 
"A6" "Bb6" "B6" "C7" "Db7" "D7" "Eb7" "E7" "F7" "Gb7" "G7" "Ab7" 
"A7" "Bb7" "B7" "C8"]

Edit: Changed from " "/""* to {8%}, to remove space.

Answer 3

Mathematica 95 112 100 97 104 chars

Admittedly not very streamlined:

Take[Flatten@Table[# <> ToString@k & /@ 
Partition[Characters[" CDb DEb E FGb GAb ABb B"], 2], {k, 0, 8}], {10, 97}]

The Flat symbol, although it occupies a single character, is transcribed to SO as \[Flat] so I used the letter "b" here.

Output:

Length@%
(* out *)
88

Answer 4

Python 103 96 94 78

[x+y for y in'0123456789'for x in'C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B'.split()][9:97]

updated according to Ev_genus's suggestion

updated according to Howard's suggestion

Answer 5

Ruby: 75 71 characters

[*?0..?9].product(%w{C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B}).map{|a,b|b+a}[9,88]

(Base idea borrowed from Matt's solution.)

Answer 6

J, 81 76 63 62 61 58 characters

_11}.9}.(_2]\,|:9#"0'C DbD EbE F GbG AbA BbB '),.12#1":i.9

Output:

A 0 
Bb0 
B 0 
C 1 
Db1 
D 1 
Eb1 
E 1
...
G 7 
Ab7 
A 7 
Bb7 
B 7 
C 8

Probably a bit of room for shortening here.

Answer 7

C (92 84 characters)

Not impressive, could be reduced further.

main(i){for(i=9;printf("%c%c%d\n","CDDEEFGGAABB"[i%12]," b b  b b b "[i%12],i/12),++i<97;);}

Using Dietrich Epp's suggestion :

main(i){for(i=9;printf("%.2s%d\n","C DbD EbE F GbG AbA BbB "+2*i%24,i/12),++i<97;);}

It produces the following output :

A 0
Bb0
B 0
C 1
Db1
D 1
Eb1
E 1
F 1
Gb1

... // lines skipped

Eb7
E 7
F 7
Gb7
G 7
Ab7
A 7
Bb7
B 7
C 8

Answer 8

Mathematica, 88

88 characters for 88 keys :-)

(Row@{#2,#1}&@@@Tuples@{0~Range~8,StringSplit@"C D♭ D E♭ E F G♭ G A♭ A B♭ B"})[[10;;97]]

Answer 9

C, 105 chars

- failing on size, so ended up aiming for a wtf different solution.

Probably only works on little-endian arch (e.g. intel) due to assumptions of treating int as small string... Assumes C program is called with no arguments, i.e. that w=1

t=12352,f;
main(w){
  t=t&64?t>>8:(w=1+w%7,(w-3)%3?t<<8|98:t+(w==3));
  f=t<<8|w+64;
  puts(&f);
  f-14403?main(w):0;
}

Output:

A0
Bb0
B0
C1
Db1
D1
Eb1
E1
F1
Gb1
G1
Ab1
--lines skipped--
Bb7
B7
C8

Edits

• -9 chars - removing some brackets and reorganising an 'if'
• -18 chars - code shuffling, sub 64 from w and pass as main arg
• -13 chars - Use 't' to carry state rather than 'f'

Answer 10

Haskell: 72 chars

take 88$drop 9[p++show o|o<-[0..],p<-words$"C D♭ D E♭ F F♯ G G♯ A B♭ B"]

Answer 11

Clojure - 71 chars

(for[c(range 10)n["C""Db""D""Eb""E""F""Gb""G""Ab""A""Bb""B"]](str n c))

Answer 12

Perl, 57+1

Just dug this up, a nice golfing exercise. Requires -E for say -- counted in score.

say+(CDbDEbEFGbGAbABbB=~/(.b?)/g)[$_%12],$_/12%9for 9..96