Re: 2 quick questions from a music teacher

[Erik Sandberg]

On Sunday 18 September 2005 20.26, Matthew Thibeault wrote:
> Hello and thanks for such a fantastic program. I am a music teacher
> with experience with programs like Sibelius. I am just learning
> Lilypond in hopes of using it with the students I teach at the School
> of the Arts in San Francisco. I really enjoy Lilypond.
>
> I do have two quick questions that I can't seem to deal with. I'm
> sure that there are easy answers, but after 2 hours of trying I
> figured maybe an email would work better. For both questions, I've
> included a sample of the code I'm using.
>
> 1. I am making a sight-singing book with my students that we plan to
> post to Mutopia when finished. The formatting looks great, but I must
> be missing something, because when I put a composer header for each
> melody, the last name appears at the head of the document. I would
> also like to insert a number before each staff so that the melodies
> are clearly numbered.

See the manual for version 2.7, section Creating Titles (the information was 
not in 2.6 manual. It might work with 2.6; if not you may want to upgrade.)

> 2. I work with an autistic student who is non-verbal. He loves music
> and can read basic music. I am using the EasyHead notes. I find
> they're hard to read unless I make things big. I have enlarged the
> staff and modified the lyrics so they are smaller, but the title and
> space between title and the music is too big.

You can play around with \markup, and see if that helps. There is also a more 
generic but difficult solution: You can produce the titles with third-party 
software, either through lilypond-book + latex, or by letting lilypond export 
an EPS file which you import to openoffice.

> I would also like to 
> insert a comment so that there are no bar numbers visible (since any
> non-critical information is a distraction I'd like to avoid).

I think there are examples in either Tips&Tricks or Regression Tests about how 
to control bar number visibility. (search for barNumberVisibility).


Good luck!

-- 
Erik