Re: Drum parts and horizontal beams

[Jonathan Kulp]

Nick Payne wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jonathan Kulp [mailto:address@hidden
> > Sent: Wednesday, 22 October 2008 06:55
> > To: Nick Payne
> > Cc: address@hidden
> > Subject: Re: Drum parts and horizontal beams
> >
> > Jonathan Kulp wrote:
> > ----
> > > The Beam damping property is still probably what you want to adjust.
> > If
> > > you give it a value like 100000 you should get a slight tilt to the
> > beam:
> > >          \override Beam #'damping = #100000
> > >
> > > If you make that -100000 it will make it tilt a bit the other way.
> > >
> > > Jon
> > Just experimenting a bit more with this, I discover that you get more
> > noticeable results if you use much smaller numbers, like #1.5 or #3 or
> > #-2.  I went with the 100000 number before b/c that used to be in a
> > snippet in the fretted strings docs and that was the only example I
> > had. :)
> >
> > From my testing, using beam damping only has an effect if the beams would
> automatically be sloped. It doesn't cause beams that are flat to gain a
> slope. The only way I've found of doing that is to use \override Beam
> #'positions = #'(x . y), but that means that every time the pitch of the top
> note in the arpeggio changes I have to issue another \override command with
> different x and y to keep the stem lengths the same. My test case is
> attached. Uncomment the beam damping command and give it any value you like
> and the beams are still flat.
>
> Nick

Yes, it looks like you're right.  I don't know if there's another 
property adjustment that would be easier than Beam Positions, but you 
could make the code a bit cleaner at least by using a definition for the 
override.  I made this one modeled on an example in the learning manual, 
in the Tweaking Output section:

slant =
#(define-music-function (parser location positionA positionB) (number? 
number?)
  #{
    \override Beam #'positions = #(cons $positionA $positionB )
  #})

Then you can use it like this:

% Treble voice
up = \relative c' {
        \override Beam #'damping = #3
        \set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 4)
        \times 4/6 {
                \slant #5 #6
                c16 g' af'-> ef g-> g, c, g' af'-> ef g-> g,
        }
}

HTH,

Jon
--
Jonathan Kulp
http://www.jonathankulp.com