Re: Function to add a drone staff?

[Gilles]

Hi.

On Fri, 10 Apr 2015 09:19:55 +0200, Sven Axelsson wrote:
> On 10 April 2015 at 00:55, Gilles <address@hidden> 
> wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Apr 2015 17:35:53 +0200, Sven Axelsson wrote:
> > > Intersting. I have never tried to generate midi output for bagpipe
> > > music. I suspect grace notes are not handled well.
> >
> > Not worse than in another kind of music. ;-)
>
> So, terribly then. ;) At least for Scottish GHB, where there often 
> are
> runs of 4-5 grace notes that need to be played without breaking
> the rhythm of the music.

Some are more terrible than others. :-)
My use of MIDI is for figuring out polyphonic arrangements.

> > > But in regards to
> > > the dronification, all of the music, both melody and drone, should 
> > > be
> > > played legato.
> >
> >
> > Indeed.
> > The solution devised by Paul works fine (Thanks!) except for
> > that aspect.  With the "manual" drone, one writes ties between
> > the notes; is it possible to add it to the function?
> >
> > > Is that also something that could be set up easily with
> > > a music function?
> > >
> > > I'm the maintainer of Lilypond's bagpipe mode, by the way.
> >
> >
> > Would you consider making "\dronify" part of a toolkit?
> > Personally, I don't use LilyPond's bagpipe mode, as it
> > seems completely biased towards the Scottish pipe. There
> > are many other kinds! :-)
>
> Well, sure it is biased since that's what I play myself. I guess
> \bagpipe is a misnomer, but \greathighlandbagpipe is a bit
> long, no?

But more accurate.
Perhaps, there is a way to create an alias, for when a user is
sure that there is no risk of name collision.

I never used any of the LilyPond competitor(s), but I imagine
that it could be appealing if it were possible to easily notate
articulation notes, e.g. for teaching purposes.

Thus, several bagpipe modes would be useful in order to
accommodate different namings (and tonalities).

> So, what kind do you play?

I found this picture:
http://www.pipeshow.net/images/Vignettes et images grande taille/Images 
grande tailles/Centre-instruments B/Dubois B/16petu-dub-gen.jpg

It's an instrument built by Olle Geris (Belgium) who learnt
bagpipe making from Remy Dubois (Belgium).
The model was revived/redesigned by Remy Dubois, in a
collaboration with Jean-Pierre Van Hees (Belgium) and Bernard
Blanc (France).
Olle, Remy and Jean-Pierre appear in this movie:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=711FgpR_YvQ

> > Wouldn't it be interesting to separate what is generally
> > valid for all bagpipes (or, actually, continuous sound
> > music) from what is specific to a given tradition (e.g.
> > the naming of the ornaments)?
>
> I'm not sure if there is enough commonality between different
> bagpipe types to justify a common mode. Some play in a fixed
> key (various Scottish highland pipes), some are more or less
> chromatic. Some are constant tone/drone, and some can play
> staccato (Uilleann and Northumbrian). And Uilleann can also
> switch the drone on/off while playing.

There must be some common ground; otherwise given the 100+
bagpipes that exist in the world, it would make a lot of modes...
:-}

The instrument referred to above is (almost) chromatic; there is
no special name for the notes; so, the usual entry is fine.
Then, what is perhaps common is that articulations should be
represented in some way (if one wants to notate them).
Another commonality is the continuous sound, and the drone (hence
my request). As you suggest, the mode should allow to switch it
off or on (with different tones, cf. "Musette de cour").
I guess that more specialized modes could "inherit" from the
common toolkit (e.g. adapting to the various namings, similarly
to Lilypond's language modes).


Best regards,
Gilles