Re: beam_control

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

David Bobroff <address@hidden> writes:

> After trying out Lilypond a long time ago I recently decided it was
> time to try it again.  I run a RH7.1 box so I downloaded the RPMs
> for RH7.1 (1.4-7).  The RPMs installed without any problems.  I then
> made a small test.  Lily digested it just fine but the music fonts
> did not appear.  The font files were in /usr/somethingorother so I
> linked them to where teTeX looks for font material, ran 'texhash'
> and all was well.

Did you run ly2dvi?  You should.  Anyway, I think these problems are
fixed if you download 1.4.13, for Red Hat 7.3.  You may want to update
your Red Hat distribution anyway, for security reasons.

Remember to logout after installing lilypond.

> Now I have run into a couple of problems which I have not been able to
> solve yet. I have a measure in which I need to have two voices.  The bottom
> voice is sixteenth notes and the top voice is eighth notes.  The time is
> 4/4 and the top voice only goes for the first three beats of the measure.
> I tried the \context thing but I doubt that I'm using it correctly.  Can it
> start at any time, or does it need to be invoked at the beginning of the
> file?  I tried starting it up in the measure where I needed it.

You mean like this?

\score{
    \context Staff \notes \relative c'' {
        a1 
        <
            \context Voice=one { \voiceOne c8 c   c c   c c }
            \context Voice=two { \voiceTwo \repeat unfold 16 a16 }
        >
        b1
    }
    \paper{linewidth = -1.0}
}

It is usually better to include a short example in your email, that's
easier than english text.

> In another measure I need to do this:
> __________
> |  |  |  |
>  |__|__|__|


See above.  Or do you mean some kind of shift?  You can use spacer
notes 's4' or so, or start the second voice any time you want.

> Can someone point me to the right place in the docs?  I have the doc
> 'Lilypond.ps'. 

See the polyphony section in the reference manual, or the piano
excerpt in the tutorial.  Also on the web:

    
http://lilypond.org/stable/Documentation/user/out-www/lilypond/Polyphony.html#Polyphony
    
   
http://lilypond.org/stable/Documentation/user/out-www/lilypond/A-piano-excerpt.html#A%20piano%20excerpt
    
> Another problem: I have a clef change during a beam.  There are four
> sixteenth notes in this beam, the clef change occurs after the first note
> of the beam.  I got the beam out of the way of the clef using;
>
> \property Voice.Beam \set #'staff-position = #-10
>
> It looks great but the beamed group immediately before it as well as all
> following beams are adjusted.  How do I limit the change to this one beamed
> group?

Try:

\score{
    \context Staff \notes \relative c'' {
        { [c'8 c c c] }
        {
            \property Voice.Beam \set #'staff-position = #-5
            [c8 \clef bass e,, e e]
        }
    }
    \paper{linewidth = -1.0}
}


> Some comments:
>
> The file I'm working on originated on Windows with Finale 2000.  I saved
> the file as .MID and used midi2ly.  The results were odd.

You're using a fairly old version of lilypond.  Version 1.4.13 has
some fixes for midi2ly, and the development version 1.5.58 has an
entirely new midi2ly program.  You may want to try those.

Hard to tell without the MIDI file...

> I also tried using the etf2ly on an .etf file saved by Finale 2000.
> Lilypond seemed to choke on it.  No ouput.

The eft2ly parser is far from finished, partly because the main
developers don't own a copy of finale and have little interest in it.

Again, newer versions of LilyPond have updates for etf2ly.  Posting
the source and the resulting file that lilypond chokes on may help.

> Just for fun I tried having Lilypond generate PS directly.  The file
> displayed just fine in gv (a bit "out of focus" in appearance) but when I
> tried printing, the noteheads were printed as "$".  I suspect that I need
> to move/link the .pfa files to a place where gs can find them (but why did
> it display properly?).

No, your printer needs the .pfa's.  You can try to download them to
your printer, or prepend them to the .ps file.  Note that the direct
PostScript output is not recommended.

Jan.

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org