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Re: Fixed Measure Widths


From: Libero Mureddu
Subject: Re: Fixed Measure Widths
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 19:23:04 +0200

Hi!
I think that the problem of mainstream jazz notation cannot be resolved simply answering that it's bad tipography: is simply a kind of notation that needs some different layout according to a precise musical practice: if one has to play in a gig lots of compositions that are based on 8+8, 4+4 or 16+16 melodic/harmonic structures, and play them immediatly, maybe only looking at the chord changes, this specific layout is really useful, based on the music. In orchestral music, to have good page turns in parts is better than have a perfect layout; it is bad typography or is a different typography? I think that jazz scores can take advantage from the particular elegance that lilypond provides, fonts and spacing in lily are very nice, as everybody knows here ;-)

In lilypond website is written that
"...In general, this is a common characteristic of typography. Layout should be pretty, not only for its own sake, but especially because it helps the reader in his task. For performance material like sheet music, this is doubly important: musicians have a limited amount of attention. The less attention they need for reading, the more they can focus on playing itself. In other words, better typography translates to better performances..."

That's a perfect explanation of what I tried to say before! (and I don't like at all the way how real books are written... but this way is useful to the players, and is now a tradition, so, why don't provide this feature that, for me, is not at all against lilypond quality?)
By the way, jazz tunes written with Finale are not particulary nice...

Best regards and sorry for this long mail


Libero Mureddu





Il giorno 12/set/04, alle 20:38, Graham Percival ha scritto:

On 10-Sep-04, at 1:36 PM, Matthew Schulkind wrote:
Is there a way to specify a fixed measure width throughout a piece, or
more prefereably have all the measures on a line be the same width?
Many fake/real books are written out this way, and I would like to be
able to duplicate this.

As Han said, this isn't a good idea.  But if you really want to, use
invisible 32nd notes in each bar (include them in an extra voice
on the same staff).

Also, is there a way to break every 4 measures automatically without
manually inserting \break?

Include the following section in your piece; again, as an extra
voice on the same staff.  Change the number to suit the length
of your piece.

\repeat unfold 8 {s1 s s s \break }

You could merge both solutions into one line.  But again, I
don't think that measure the same width is a good idea.

Cheers,
- Graham



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