RE: Silly question, maybe... how the basic chordmode works for lead-sheets

[Don Gingrich]

Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 11:21:24 +0100
From: "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden>
To: "Don Gingrich" <address@hidden>,
        <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Silly question, maybe...

--

Phil said:
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Don Gingrich" <address@hidden>
> > To: <address@hidden>
> > Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 10:59 AM
> > Subject: Silly question, maybe...


> > Is there a searchable archive of past questions and
> > answers from this list? A cursory look found nothing
> > anywhere obvious.

> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/

Thanks, Phil,

The footer did not really point me to the archive --
I'm possibly not as used to mailman lists as I should be.

But my question was not easily answered in either the
documentation or a slightly more than cursory look at the
archive.

What I was trying to work out involved taking a 
generated file from MuseScore and getting it to properly
generate a LilyPond score output.

Why would I do that? 

I figured that, if I had some code to start with, it might
be easier to get good output quickly. This has proved to 
be true.

What I wanted to achieve was something on the order of 
the lead-sheet with chord names illustrated in Lilypond-Snippets
on page number 259 of the pdf version (Single staff template
with notes and chords)

I eventually worked out that the format of the chord 
information is: [1]

kD[:m] --  where:

  k == key of the chord
  D == duration -- 1 = 4 beats
                   2 = 2 beats
                   4 = 1 beat, etc. with a trailing . equal to 1/2
                               the preceding and some funky variations
                               such as 1*5/4 which would = 5 beats being
                               possible -- the key point is that this 
                               value defines the duration for which
                               the chord is valid
  :m == modifier as in 7 for a 7th chord or m for a minor chord -- this
        is optional and the following line will force the more common
        maj7 modifier instead of the delta if that's your preference:

        \set Score.majorSevenSymbol = \markup {maj7}

I hope this is useful to someone. I know that printing folk-dance 
music lead sheets or song lead sheets is a far cry from the orchestral
scores that some are producing, but I can see that without *too* much
of a learning curve I may be able to be productive. (I gave LilyPond
a go because MuseScore kept crashing when I tried to modify the beats
in a measure internally (not the first measure -- necessary when putting
multiple tunes (each with an anacrusis and a shortened final measure) 
together in a "set" for a dance.


[1] I'm posting this for two reasons. 
    1 - I may get some feedback about whether I've got it right or 
        at least close. 
    2 - it was decidedly non-intuitive for me at first, and I'm 
        hoping that this may help some future newby.
> --
> Phil Holmes
--

-Don