Elf Help: Music and Scoring

Music

Every composition that Elf produces is checked for musical changes. Each type of music has an associated number of points, and these points are totalled up for every matching change to give the overall music rating for the composition. By default, Elf looks for the following types of music:

1 point5678, 6578 or 8765 at the back
1 point5678 or 8765 off the front
1 point2345 or 5432 off the front or back
1 point2468 or 3468 at the back
3 pointsQueens or Whittingtons

You can re-configure Elf to look for different types of music, and also alter their weightings. To do this, click the "configure" link by the Music heading on the main composer page. Each different type of music has a points value, and a list of one or more wildcard rows. For instance, Elf's default "little-bell" music type is defined as follows: 

2345xxxx 5432xxxx xxxx2345 xxxx5432
The 'x' characters are wildcards which will match any bell. The effect of the line above is therefore to match any change which has 2345 or 5432 runs at the front or back.

Note that a single change in the composition can match more than one music type, and if so it will gain the points from each. For example, Queens will match both the standard "468" and "Queens" music types, so will score 1+2 = 3.

Scoring

When scoring a composition, Elf takes into account the method balance and number of changes of method as well as the music. Because only the highest ten scoring compositions are displayed at any one time, these may not be the most musical touches possible. However, normally the most desirable compositions are the ones with a good all-round combination of method balance, changes of method and music.

You can change the points weighting given to a composition's changes of method (COM) and method balance from the Music page described above. Two items "COM" and "BALANCE" are shown at the bottom of the music definition list. You can click on these to edit the points weighting given to each. Unlike the music definitions, you can't edit these "special" types in any other way.

The default values for COM and BALANCE are 2 and 1 respectively. This means that the total score for a composition is calculated as follows: 

m + 2*c + 1*b
Where m is the number of points for music, c is the number of changes of method per part, and b is the method balance percentage 0-100. By altering the weighting values for COM and BALANCE you can change the importance of these two measurements by comparison with the music points. For example, you might set COM to 0 if you have no interest in changes of method; or you could set BALANCE to a high value such as 100 if you think method balance is the most important aspect of your composition.