Re: Certain accidentals

[Brian Barker]

At 23:09 17/04/2014 -0300, Alfredo Noname wrote:
> I sometimes have to write many accidentals in a bar and was 
> wondering if there was a way I could write the music in C major and 
> then transpose only the notes I need to be "sharpened" or flattened.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here.  Accidentals are the 
additional markers that will appear where necessary in the final 
engraving to show notes that vary from what the key signature 
indicates.  You will want those, of course - and they are no 
difficulty, since Lilypond will do the work of deciding where they 
are necessary.

But perhaps you are referring to the method of textual input in 
Lilypond, where notes that are named "sharp" or "flat" need to be 
qualified as such, notwithstanding what the \key indication would 
appear already to imply.  (In this way, Lilypond operates somewhat 
counterintuitively and against normal musical thinking.)  Yes: this 
means that manual construction of a .ly file is harder work when the 
key requires many sharps or flats.  And in that case it is perfectly 
possible to construct a file using "\key c \major" and sharp or flat 
suffixes only where true accidentals will be necessary, and then to 
use \transpose to convert it in a stroke to the key and 
representation you actually require.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker