Re: Volunteering with LilyPond

[Reilly]

Graham and fellow Lilyponders:

I have been following the discussion of Graham's planned departure from 
the Lilypond team and other recent discussions on the extent to 
document code in style sheets and tweaks. I began using Lilypond in the 
summer of 2007, after rejecting demo versions of the major commercial 
notation software. It has been a rocky transition from pencil and paper 
to digital notation. The output from version 2.11.35 is quite good and 
much better than 2.10. I would like to contribute back to the Lilypond 
community which has been very helpful to me, but, unfortunately, I 
cannot *commit* at this time. This doesn't mean I cannot help, just 
that I cannot commit. (The truth is, my life is in shambles financially 
speaking --- no different than many other musicians?)

No offense to everyone who has worked on the documentation for 
Lilypond, but the documentation is the weakest component of the 
package. The index often lacks entries for my questions. The entries 
more often than not, do not address my problems. The coded examples are 
often "too clever" and don't illuminate my ignorance. Obviously 
everyone wants to make the documentation equal to the programming. That 
is why the GDP is underway.

Suggestion:

Collect a team of "Lilypond MUSIC Consultants." This could be the 
general lilypond-user group or a subset. Volunteer members would agree 
to answer questions. The GDP team should *not* spend time researching 
answers to musical or notational questions IF they can find a "local 
Lilypond user" who knows the answer. For instance, take the questions 
below:

On Jan 6, 2008, at 2:58 AM, Graham Percival <address@hidden> wrote:

> Concrete example?  Well, there's "falls and doits" in Expressive
> marks.  I have no clue what these are.  Something for jazz
> singers?  Saxophonists?  Maybe they're used in Baroque notation?
> Or a special mark for accordion players?
> Is the current doc section acceptable?  I have no clue.  Judging
> from the picture and the input, \bendAfter does *something*.  But
> I don't know what it's doing, nor what else the doc should say
> here.  Maybe people who use \bendAfter would also want a link to
> the ancient notation articulations?  Or the vocal "aligning
> syllabels" ?  I have no clue.

For example, f somebody writing the GDP had a question about falls or 
doits, he (Graham in this case) could simply post to the "Lilypond 
Consultant" list,

What is a fall?
What is a doit?

And, a user responds:

A fall is a downward glissando while decrescendoing from an initial 
pitch to an indeterminate pitch below. There are long falls (gliss down 
an octave) or short falls (gliss down a fourth). I primarily see them 
in jazz notation.

A doit is an upward glissando of about a fifth from an initial pitch. 
The notes fade as the pitch rises.

Falls and doits can be played (or faked) on most instruments not just 
saxophones. I've never seen a fall or doit notated in baroque notation 
(baroque notation is pretty lean).

> In a few months, if GDP is still progressing, we'll be tackling NR
> 2 specific notation.  These problems will be even worse then.  I
> honestly think that I've /never/ seen any classical guitar sheet
> music.  How am I supposed to supervise work on this section?  I
> can check submissions for accordance to the doc policy, but I
> certainly can't judge the *contents* of those docs.
>
> Now what about the poor GDP helper who gets assigned work on
> Guitar music?  I don't think that any of the current helpers play
> guitar, so they'll have the same problems that I face.
>
> (nothing personal against guitars... I know virtually nothing
> about everything else in NR 2, including vocal music)
>
> Many of the volunteers begin their emails saying "I know almost
> nothing about music notation, but I'm willing to help if you think
> I can without embarassing myself".  I am completely baffled about
> all these volunteers -- I mean, I'm incredibly happy about
> them, but baffled nevertheless.  Why do so many people want to
> help after reading nothing more than the lilypond tutorial?  And
> conversely, why is it that nobody who actually *is* familiar with
> music notation and lilypond volunteers?

Responding to Graham's public expression of ignorance, I will share my 
own: I am completely baffled by Lilypond code at least half the time. I 
don't understand Scheme. I don't get make-event. I don't understand 
when I code

                \once \override Score . RehearsalMark #'self-alignment-X = #-1

which should left justify the RehearsalMark to the time signature (I am 
leaving out other code here), the rehearsal mark is *not* left aligned. 
I finally shifted the rehearsal mark 7 spaces leftward until is was 
properly aligned.

What I do know is various musical instruments, musical styles, and 
musical notation:

piano
pipe organ
classical guitar
saxophone
clarinet
viola
accordion
recorder
trombone
tuba
voice
familiar with Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Early Romantic, Jazz 
(all styles), 20th century, and contemporary melodic music; unfamiliar 
with Late Romantic, atonal, serial, or skitchy-doodle music (where the 
bars stop and start, microtonal notes, wiggly lines "suggesting" 
pitches, staves laid out in circles, spirals, crosses). I recognize 
skitcy-doodle music when I see it, but I don't know what it means and I 
couldn't notate it.

A general *alert* to the GDP team: music notation is NOT standardized. 
Shock. Horrors. It's true, Virginia. For the past year, I have 
consulted all the notational references listed in the Lilypond manual, 
other old and current notational references, and scores of scores 
(sorry!). Nothing is standardized. There is general agreement that the 
notation should be legible and informative. The variations in notation 
stem from region (Germany, England, USA, etc...), genre (classical, 
folk, pop, etc....), intended use (general public, performance, 
recording studio (and here jazz, classical, country ...), age (music 
for kids is printed larger than for adults, instrument (percussionist 
parts should be printed larger than standard parts because the 
percussion often is farther from the music!). I am conflicted in regard 
to notation. I want to keep the flexibility of Lilypond to tweak the 
output to my needs. Yet, I want to introduce some consistency in output 
to improve the quality of printed music for all the composers who don't 
want to tweak their output. I think minimally this would require a 
number of style sheet packages (like LaTeX packages) which (a) address 
all the issues appropriate for the intended output (e.g. contemporary 
conducting score style sheet; contemporary study score style sheet; 
contemporary condensed score style sheet); and (b) at the same time, 
make the issues user tweakable. For instance, you will read in 
*numerous* works on music notation that Staff Size 5 is a certain 
vertical height or such. Or that orchestral parts are printed on paper 
of certain dimensions. None of this is true in the following sense: 
I've measured many pieces of music (staff height, margins, paper) and 
the dimensions are neither uniform nor standardized. Perhaps such 
issues are not terribly critical, but I like to think that just as in 
writing the music, the details are important, so too in the 
presentation of the music.

I am sure there will be many interesting thoughts in regard to my 
comments. I look forward to reading them.

Cheers,

Jeremiah