Re: sharping naturals

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2015 11:33:50 -0500
Brother Gabriel-Marie <address@hidden> wrote:

> When you use key signatures like A major or B Major you end 
> up with a lot of naturals in the score for which you may 
> have to manually add sharps.
> 
> Is there a switch that will automatically sharp all the 
> naturals?
> I was looking at this:
> http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/displaying-pitches#automatic-accidentals
> 
> This was the closest I could see:
> \accidentalStyle modern
> 
The developers have resisted this from the beginning, because
they don't realize how easy it would be. There may be also a
certain contempt for the user or composer who is not expected to
know what key he's in. There are editing tools which will add the
chromatic signs for you. I posted one on this list some time ago,
a bash script using sed. Nicholas Sceaux has written one. It may
be that the Garibaldi editor will do it, I don't know.

The appropriate notes are sharped or flatted unless there is an
"n" or any other chromatic sign. That's it. Simple, fault
tolerant, and not requiring any changes at all to the many
choices already present in lilypond.

\follow {} has been suggested as the command. I would suggest
that \follow indicate which notes with the sharp or flat, as
 
\follow fs cs gs {music}

to avoid language problems as much as possible.

It is possible that a piece may have so many of certain
accidentals that \follow would be more trouble unless you lied
about the key. You would probably not use it for a blues in G.

The need is to insert the chromatic signs
before anything else, such as transposition, is done. 
Kindest regards, Rale 

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