Re: First impressions (Was: Rolls and Ruffs)

[Mats Bengtsson]

Bruce McIntyre wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Peter Mogensen wrote:
>
> > > - representing snare drum notes. (Ruffs, rolls and flams). The
> > > current layout is acceptable, but the it's a hack. It would be
> > > better if Lilypond knew the correct musical concept.  Tremolos in
> > > ruffs and rolls should not be aligned with beams.  It's annoying
> > > that grace notes needs to be phantom duplicated in other voiced in
> > > repeats, but I can see that's a know bug. Anyway, the period
> > > between the to beats of a flam is so short that grace notes
> > > doesn't give the correct timing.
>
>
> Mats Bengtsson replied:
>
> > Judging from the mails on the mailing list, there hasn't been that
> > many people using LilyPond for percussion earlier. At least not
> > people with sufficient competence to realize these problems. Even if
> > you have described the problems in some earlier emails, I think it
> > would be nice if you could collect your request in a separate email
> > sent as a feature request to the bug-lilypond or lilypond-devel
> > mailing lists.  Of course, it's even better if you can assist
> > yourself in implementing such features.
>
>
> My 50c:
>
> I've been using Lilypond for percussion notation (mostly snare drum
> and drum-set) and have found it produces good results. Tremolos in
> ruffs and rolls _can_ be aligned with beams.  This is how it is done
> in Wilcoxon's All American Drummer (one of the seminal snare drum
> books). This is not to say that the alternate form mentioned above
> would not be useful.
>
> In drum notation it is important to distinguish between the double
> stroke or `open roll', where each stick strikes the drum twice, and
> the buzz roll, where each stick produces an indefinite number of
> strokes.  Usually this is done today by indicating double stroke rolls
> with tremolo repeat symbols and buzz rolls with a z through the stem
> of the note in the same fashion as the / of the tremelo repeat.

You mean something like
\score{
 \notes\relative c''{
  \stemUp
  \once \override TextScript #'extra-offset = #'(.5 . -2)
  b4 ^\markup{\large \dynamic z }
}}

> The z symbol is often similar to that found in rfz (with a smaller lower
> florish), otherwise it is more like a sans serif `z'. The `cursive' z
> is found more on old scores, so seems to be the way to go for lilypond
> if a 19C aethsetic is desired.  In the same way these scores use a
> double-sharp sign to indicate cymbals, not a simple `x'.
>
> Sometimes the trill symbol is used to indicate a roll (especially of the
> buzz type) . This is, I think, more common in French typography. When
> there is only one species of roll in the work, such as in much orchestral
> music, the tremolo style roll is used throughout.
>
> In rudimental drumming (with measured double-stroke rolls) the tie
> connecting the beginning of the roll to it's end-stroke has a number
> at it's apex, indicating the number of pulsations. It would be nice
> (scary phrase huh?) if one could connect a markup to the mid-point of
> ties (both phrasing and otherwise) so this could be implemented. This
> would be useful for Schenkerian analysis as well. A similar feature
> for analysis brackets would be ace!

Again, this can be obtained using extra-offset, but this requires much
manual work to look good. However, I'm certain that some of the Scheme
hackers on the mailing list can provide a nice solution that redefines
the print-function property of the slur. Another hackers alternative
would be to use the functionality of the triplet typesetting and replace 
the text.

   /Mats
text. However, all