Re: Suggestions for Lilypond 1.4

[Mats Bengtsson]

> If I could possibly ask, I'd be very much plea-
> sed if the following features could make it to
> Lilypond 1.4 :
>

>

>   - Having complete control over the note orne-
>     ments meaning that it can be specified whi-
>     ch note(s) is/are to be pralled in a chord,
>     to have total control unto where it should
>     be put, and having some easy defaults  (un-
>     der the note, over the note...)

Do you really want the ornament in the middle of the

staff lines? What to do when it doesn't fit between
two notes of a chord?

If you just want to specify if an ornament should be

above or below the staff it's trivial, example:
c_\prall c^prall

>   - Being able to specify a fingering for orne-
>     ments.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, see the attached example file.

>   - Making it  possible to specify  if an orne-
>     ment should be "sharped" or "flated" or on-
>     ly "naturalized".  I've been told it's pos-
>     sible already, but sinc I haven't found an
>     entry in the manual, I take it it's a hack.

There's a section on Text Markup in the manual that

describes how to access music symbols in the scripts.
What's not descibed in the manual is how to find the
name for each symbol (why not add a list in the autogenerated
part of the manual?). The attached example shows some
different ways to get what you want. One strange thing
is that the ornament always is typeset closest to the
staff, no matter what order you stack the script requests.

>   - Adding several ornementation symbols, espe-
>     cially the pralls from the English baroque
>     era (Purcell's keyboard work, al...).

Jeremie has sent me a copy of two of these symbols
which I'll try to add. If you have more symbols to be
added, please send requests to the mailing list including
some good examples on the layout.

>   - Making it possible to use the "unison" sym-
>     bol (it's when a note, or more, are the sa-
>     me on two staffs, to prevent a harpsichord
>     player when playing on two different keybo-
>     ards to play it with both hand, specify wi-
>     th a line connection both notes that it sh-
>     ould only be played once. Here's a diagram:
>

>

>         ------------|------------||
>         ------------|------------||
>         --|\-|\-----|------------||
>         --/--/------|---|--------||
>         -O---O------|---|--------||
>              |         O
>              |
>             -O-
>             -|-
>         -----|/-----|--O---------||
>         -O----------|--|---------||
>         -|----------|--|---------||
>         -|/---------|------------||
>         ------------|------------||
>

>     The two Es are unison.)

Hmm, we can't use the support for VoiceFollower.
One question is how to specify what notes to join with
the line.

>   - Adding "tierces coul?es" or some sort of ar-
>     peggio, without mainting every notes of th-
>     e chord down. The (bad) diagram:
>

>           O
>           /
>           O
>          |
>          |

I requested the same feature in MusiXTeX several years ago and
have missed it in Lilypond. In MusiXTeX, we used the italian
name acciaccatura for the symbol. It's a dash to be drawn

in the middle between the two notes of a chord (it should be
possible to use the implementation of arpeggio typesetting
to do most of the work).

I'm not sure what happens if you have more than two notes in
the chord, is it always written between two notes of a chord?
In that case we have to specify which two notes in some way.

>   - Being able to specify for each rests, it's
>     vertical position if Lilypond doesn't figu-
>     re a good one out.

This is one of the hundreds of properties that can be
set in Lilypond, see the attached example. One problem
is that if the collision handling mechanism in Lilypond
moves the rest, the staff-position you specify is relative
to the position Lilypond gives the rest. It would be better
if you could specify the absolute position.

    /Mats

% Define some short-hands:
#(define text-flat '((font-relative-size . -2)
         ((raise . 0.2) (music "accidentals--1"))))
#(define text-natural '((font-relative-size . -2)
         ((raise . 0.35) (music "accidentals-0"))))
#(define text-sharp '((font-relative-size . -2)
         ((raise . 0.35) (music "accidentals-1"))))

\score{
  \notes\relative c'{
    % Accidentals over ornaments:
    c^\prall^#'(music "accidentals-1") d^\mordent^#'(music "accidentals--1") 
    e^#text-flat ^\reverseturn f^\prallprall^#text-natural |
    % Fingering over ornaments:
    c^\prall^2 d^\mordent^"3 2 3" 
    % Specified rest position: 
    r \property Voice.Rest \override #'staff-position = #5 r |
  }
}