Re: percussion

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Saturday 06 March 2004 15:41, David Bobroff wrote:
> I'm trying to understand percussion.  I found the example in the
> manual for defining your own drum list, but I'm not sure it tells me
> everything I need to know.  For example, I need to accomodate five
> temple blocks and four congas.  In the manuscript the temple blocks
> are always on the staff lines, and the congas are always in the
> spaces.
>
> I tried using this example from the manual as a template:
>
>      #(define mydrums '(
>              (bassdrum     default   #f        -1)
>              (snare        default   #f        0)
>              (hihat        cross     #f        1)
>              (pedalhihat   xcircle   "stopped" 2)
>              (lowtom        diamond   #f       3)
>      ))
>
> As long as I was just altering values in the right column I was fine.
> When I tried to put in new names that would be useful to me I ran
> into trouble.  It seems these things are predefined (in
> drumpitch-init.ly?). Since I need four congas and five temple blocks,
> how do I go about this?

Mats gave me a way to solve a closely related problem, to put
instruments in voices instead of on staves.  He will probably have an
up-to-date version up soon.

We have the same root cause that midi has staves where it should have
voices.

It was decided long ago to keep midistaff==lilypondstaff so that many
more parts could be accommodated, but there is the hidden gotcha that
you have to eliminate all unisons from every midi staff.  Since each
percussion instrument is a pitch rather than a voice, if you have
copies of the same instrument in the midi staff you have unisons. 

I submit, again, that it would be better to put midi staves in voice
rather than staff context so midistaff==lilypondvoice.  To get more
voices for those who are setting symphonies, one could subdivide
voices into subvoices or midikeys (because unisons are not an issue for 
a
keyboard instrument) or some name better than those, and have lilypond
give an error message when a unison within a voice occurs.  That
approach would eliminate the problem by providing a very easy workaround
for the limitations of midi and making it possible to document and
detect the problems better.  Now midi players detect errors, but you
have to hear them to locate them.  The unisons tend to drop out or
almost drop out.  It can be difficult to find them, especially because
this problem is not documented.  In a complex score, correction requires
that you create a separate midi version with the problem notes on
separate staves.

Your problem is much worse because your instruments only have one
note, which can cause a *lot* of unisons, but I think the solution
would be much the same.  daveA

-- 
It's not that hard to understand the lesson of Viet Nam.  Never never
never never defend one tyrant against another, because The worst thing
that can happen is you might win.  The *Gulf* war was worse than Nam.
D. Raleigh Arnold dra@ (http://www.) openguitar.com address@hidden