Shape Notes

[Jim Duke]

Greetings,

I am a new user and potential developer to LilyPond, and am interested in
adding support for Shape Notes.  I use LilyPond for typesetting music for
use in my congregation, and shape notes are the preferred style.  I really
don't have an option - if I want to use the music in my congregation, I will
need to use shape notes.

I noticed that a J. David Blackstone expressed interest in adding support
for shape notes about 2 1/2 years ago - but it seems to have fallen by the
wayside.  I'm trying to contact Mr. Blackstone - but so far no luck.  So it
looks like I will need to do it myself.  So, I'm looking for any advice I
can get.

My thoughts so far are:

Modify the Note-Heads class to include an alternate print function along the
lines of brew_ez_stencil.

This new function (brew_shape_stencil or whatever) would need to have access
to the local key signature applicable to the note head.  It isn't clear to
me how to get that.  It has been very hard for me to figure out what
properties are available for what objects.  Being a guile/scheme novice, I'm
not sure of what I'm seeing in the code yet - but this is what I surmise:

Any code can add any property to any object.  What structure is there seems
to be by convention.  Is that true?

If so, then how do I determine what that convention is?  How do I determine
what an appropriate modification to that convention should be?

For example - so far as I can currently tell - the localKeySignature
property is not directly available to the NoteHead grob.  Would it be a good
approach to modify the Note-Heads-Engraver class to add that property to the
note heads it makes?  That way my new brew-shape-stencil will have all the
data it needs to choose the right glyph.

Another idea I had was to modify the pitch object to have the
localKeySignature property set; but my gut feeling is that is a bad idea.  I
don't know why I think it's a bad idea - I just have that feeling.


Thanks in advance for any help or advice,

Jim Duke