Re: Is Lilypond right for this need?

[Cliff Pruitt]

Thanks for the advice.

The suggestions would be great if I were more proficient at writing  
out music in general. I think what I'm trying to figure out is the  
best way to approximate the correct phrases quickly without taking  
the time to be accurate.  I'm very slow at determining music notation  
and for me to actually work out the note durations for all of our  
songs would take forever (I'm working of guitar lessons I had back  
when I was in high school & early college).  I know HOW to work it  
out (conceptually) but its a very slow & unnatural process for me.

My main requirements are:
- Have a chord line up over the right word
- Place Bar lines in the right positions
- Multiple verses of lyrics under one line (staff) of chords

Ideally I would be able to format it as a chord in the given key (for  
bass & piano) & optionally have another staff that shows chord names  
transposed for use with a capo.

I think what I'm running into is just that your average run of the  
mill rock guitar player (i.e. myself) is out of touch enough with the  
correct way of reading & writing music that it might be a difficult  
switch for me.  Its my deficiency, not the software.

I've managed to output a sample song with the correct chord / word  
alignment, but the bar lines are in all kinds of chaotic places since  
every syllable is (I'm assuming) interpreted as a quarter note.  At  
this point I'm down to trying to figure out a consistent method for  
reducing everything to 32nd or 64th notes based on syllables, filling  
whatever isn't used with rests & just trying to write an app to  
convert some simple text file into an .ly file.

Really Lilypond probably is overkill for what I need, but there isn't  
anything else out there that does what I need any better.  There's  
not much out there for that stage between a word processor document  
and the need for full blown sheet music.

Any other thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated, but I  
understand if I'm just outside of the box here.
- Cliff


On Oct 31, 2006, at 2:44 PM, Mats Bengtsson wrote:

> Why not simply specify the rhythm both for the chords and
> the lyric syllables. If you don't need the melody anyway, it's
> probably a detour to do what Simon proposes.
> \score{
> <<
>  \new ChordNames \chordmode { g4  d2 c4 d1 g }
>  \new Lyrics \lyricmode { Over4 all2 the4 earth You reign on high }
> >>
> }
>
>   /Mats
>
> Simon Dahlbacka wrote:
>
> >     In step 1 I need to just provide lyrics for my vocalists, and  
> > lyrics
> >     with chord names for the musicians.  So for example I would  
> > need the
> >     Lilypond equivalent of:
> >
> >     G      D       C         D
> >        Over all the earth You reign on
> >
> >     G
> >     high
> >
> >
> >
> > the problem with this, is that you somehow will need to tell  
> > Lilypond how to sync the lyrics with the cords. And for that I  
> > think that it might be easiest to just write down the melody and  
> > sync the lyrics to that just like the following snippet (uncomment  
> > either of the commented choices to get desired effect).
> >
> > harmonies = \new ChordNames \chordmode {
> >     b2 f2 es2 f2/es % and so on ...
> > }
> >
> > thelyrics = \lyricmode {
> >     O -- ver all the earth You reign on high % and so on ...
> > }
> >
> > melody =  \relative c' {
> >     \key bes \major
> >     r4 d8 f a4 ~ a16 bes16 g8 ~ | g4 g f8. f16 ~ f8 f % and so on ...
> > }
> >
> > \score {
> >     <<
> >         \harmonies
> >         % uncomment the following line for just chord sheet
> >         %\new Devnull = "melody" \melody
> >         % uncomment the following line for melody sheet
> >         %\new Voice = "melody" \melody
> >                \new Lyrics \lyricsto "melody" \thelyrics
> >     >>
> >     \layout  {
> >     }
> > }
> >
> > \paper {
> > }
> >
> >     I guess my questions is, is Lilypond geared toward formal  
> > music to
> >     the extent that there is no easy way to use it for simple chord
> >     sheets until I become proficient enough to use it for melody  
> > lines?
> >
> >
> > there might be simpler choices yes, but I don't have any names to  
> > give
> >
> >
> > hope this helps
> >
> > /Simon
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> > ---
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > lilypond-user mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
>
>
> --
> =============================================
>         Mats Bengtsson
>         Signal Processing
>         Signals, Sensors and Systems
>         Royal Institute of Technology
>         SE-100 44  STOCKHOLM
>         Sweden
>         Phone: (+46) 8 790 8463                         
>        Fax:   (+46) 8 790 7260
>         Email: address@hidden
>         WWW: http://www.s3.kth.se/~mabe
> =============================================