Re: Multi-measure rests and mark collisions ...

[Wols Lists]

On 25/04/16 05:31, David Wright wrote:
> On Sun 24 Apr 2016 at 19:18:01 (+0100), Anthonys Lists wrote:
>> On 24/04/2016 03:13, David Wright wrote:

>>
>> Ah - does that mean the rehearsal mark would happily overwrite the
>> blank space at the start of the other markup string?
> 
> Typically, yes.

Ah good ...
> 
>> But as for "why would I want to do that" - to serve as an example
>> maybe. Let's change it then. Get rid of the tempo. The title would
>> still collide with the rehearsal mark, and it would still take three
>> lines - I wouldn't save a line. But shift the title a couple of mill
>> to the right, and it would drop down and save us a line. SAVING
>> VERTICAL SPACE is the point.
>>>

>>
>> Most people? Most people probably give up and go back to Sibelius,
>> or Finale, or whatever. My day job was programming, and I haven't
>> managed to get to grips with Scheme (it was FORTRAN/C, so Scheme is
>> a bit of a culture shock :-) because time to concentrate and learn
>> is a luxury :-(
> 
> Fair enough. I was making the point that LP sometimes looks like a
> programming language but isn't actually one.
> 
> But it never ceases to amaze me how, if you post a reasonably
> well-defined problem here, someone often posts a scheme solution.
> But you have to factorise your problem into chunks that people
> will feel inclined to tackle.

Well, I would like to tackle them myself. But, as I said, time to
concentrate is a luxury (I'm a carer, and dealing with someone with
memory problems can be very difficult :-(
> 
>>> Why not push the rehearsal mark left if you want loads of text to the right?
>>> I don't get the bit about notes in a MMR. Isn't that a contradiction?
>>
>> Not really. My modus operandi is
>>
>> voiceStaff = ...
>> voiceInstrument1 = ...
>> voiceInstrument2 = ...
>>
>> \score {
>>   <<
>>     voiceStaff
>>     voiceInstrument1
>>   >>
>> }
>> \score {
>>   <<
>>     voiceStaff
>>     voiceInstrument2
>>   >>
>> }
>>
>> The problem is that the contents of voiceInstrumentx has a *major*
>> influence on the way the contents of voiceStaff is displayed :-(
>> Instrument1 may have an MMR, Instrument2 may have notes, they affect
>> the bar spacing in different ways, and I may get markup collisions
>> in one part, and no collisions in the other. Basically, lily is
>> setting the notes, and then fitting the markup over the notes. There
>> are occasions when you want to set the markup and then fit the notes
>> under it.
> 
> Without wishing to imply that I could code it, that's why you might
> have fragments of markup suitable for notes, and others for MMRs,
> and then select between them to assemble each part.

In other words, put loads of \tags or instrument-specific stuff in
voiceStaff, which is supposed to be instrument-independent :-(
> 
> Why would you "go back to" Sibelius? Would that automate this?
> Even if you had to assemble the fragments manually for each part,
> that would be simpler, I'd have thought. You may or may not end up
> with a part like one of mine:
> texttenorsA = \lyricmode {
>   \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Tteetuka 
> \Tteetuka
>   \barNumberCheck #17
>   \Tteetuka \Tteetuka \Ttravi \Ttravs \Ttravs \Ttravr \Ttravs \Ttravs
>   \Ttravz
>   \barNumberCheck #27
>   \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka \Tzumpaka 
> \Tzumpaka \Tzumpakaz
>   Oo __ _ _
>   \barNumberCheck #35
>   \Tvumtb \Ttravs
> }
> where I'm selecting from a menu of lyrics fragments.
> 
?????

And let's say the piece is SSAATTBB, could you combine that single
lyrics part with two different tenor melody parts, to give two different
part-sheets? Because THAT is the problem I would like to solve.

>>>
>>>
>> And you've given me a wonderful example of what I want :-) Let's say
>> a new tune starts at B, so I put a tune name there. You can't play
>> two tunes at once, can you? But you've got two tune names stacked
>> one above the other ... (Yes I know you can play two tunes at once,
>> but it's not normal :-) And you could get stacking tempi the same
>> way...
> 
> If the names of the tunes are so important (which is pretty
> unusual for a part), then why not place them underneath (like "halt!"
> in my example) so they don't interfere with the tempos.

Because I don't give a monkeys about interfering with tempi? Because I
*DO* give a massive monkeys about wasting vertical space, and moving the
tune-name underneath gains me nothing?

> If the names of the tunes are long, you're already going to have to
> deal with how they mesh with your linebreaks (which is tricky
> because you usually don't know where the latter will fall).
> 
> You could shrink the names of the tunes. You could print them in a
> heap at the foot of the page. You could leave them out of the parts,
> as is conventional. You could decide on your priorities.
> 
>> At the end of the day, the basic problem is that lily, by default,
>> stacks markup upwards. There is no way to tell it that markup should
>> push sideways (and I seem to remember David Kastrup saying "how the
>> ... do you expect me to code that" or words to that effect, it's a
>> very hard problem). But from my point of view, the cost of that
>> extra wasted line because markup stacks can be astronomical - the
>> cost of a page turn can easily be thirty seconds in a performance,
>> and I've known it be "forever", when a player has tried to do it
>> quickly and lost his music in the process ...
> 
> Oh, there are worse cases than that. A marching band can't turn the
> page in the middle of a piece.
> 
That's exactly the case I was thinking of :-) That or sitting on a windy
bandstand where any attempt to turn the page is likely to result in the
music taking flight across a field ...

> But I see you've now acknowledged (indirectly) that LP can set
> multiple marks at the same point after stating that it can't.
> Are there other things that LP can be persuaded to do itself that you
> have closed your mind to?
> 
Except I *haven't* closed my mind. That's you putting words into my
mouth. You can do a heck of a lot with lilypond, IF you're prepared to
put in the effort. But you *shouldn't* *have* *to* put LOADS of effort
in to doing something simple, like multiple marks on a barline! It's
pretty damn standard for a whole bunch of changes to happen at the start
of a phrase, all fighting for the same barline, and there's going to be
a rehearsal mark there as well!

That should NOT require "advanced lilypond programming", and if it does
you are going to lose an awful lot of possible users! And it's in
probably about NINETY percent of all the commercial music that ends up
on my music stand, so it's not that exotic a requirement ...

>> What I want, is to move "This is the army ..." slightly to the
>> right, so it fits next to the A, and it should then push the B to
>> the right out of the way, and the music fit neatly underneath.
>> Because one instrument may have a single MMR between A and B, while
>> another instrument plays the entire tune. And that is my problem in
>> a nutshell - what the instrument has affects how the markup is
>> displayed, when I would rather the markup affect how the instrument
>> is displayed.
>>
>> This is why, as Kieran said, such a large amount of time can be
>> spent on silly little layout tweaks, and as I say, in my case just
>> letting it spill onto a second page is a very *expensive* option.
> 
> The more preconditions you set (rehearsal marks cannot be right
> justified, to clear the way for the other marks amd tempo indications;
> long tune titles must be included; multiple rests must be consolidated;
> no page turns are allowed; ...) the more work you or LP have to do.
> The more unconventional they are, the more they fall into your lap.
> And in what area of computing does the last 10% not take 90% of the
> time? (I still don't know what you're trying to accomplish, or what
> you have managed in the past, like remembering those empty chords.)
> 
What I'm trying to accomplish? Copy "House Style", maybe? I can't see a
publisher on the piece I'm trying to copy at the moment, but I think
it's Harper Verlag, and it's their standard style across all their
arrangements. And the whole point of this entire thread has been about
SAVING VERTICAL SPACE - it's just plain butt-ugly for markup to stack
vertically when a slight shift sideways could save lines - plus there's
the high price I put on page turns that could be saved by reclaiming
that wasted space.

And the house style gets worse, they put copyright notices for each
individual piece in footnotes, that appear on the same page as the tune
itself ... I haven't tried playing with footnotes yet, but I'm sure
that'll be just as hard, or even harder ... :-)

At the end of the day, I thought the whole point of lilypond was to
"produce beautifully typeset music that is a pleasure to play". And yes,
I know a program can't do the same job as an experienced typesetter, but
when the default output looks downright UGLY, with wildly differing
inter-staff gaps, it's *not* easy to play. And when the fix is as simple
as just moving a bit of markup a few mills left or right, it shouldn't
be an advanced job in programming to do it!


And from comments in this thread it seems this is one of those monty
python requirements where "you're the tenth person today I've had to
tell that there's no demand for this sort of thing"! This sort of stuff
is important when you're setting (and especially when you're copying)
parts. You said "If the names of the tunes are so important (which is
pretty unusual for a part)" - actually, if the original publisher puts
them in, they ARE important because the conductor will assume the player
has them to hand! Half the time I don't know the tune, or the name, and
the conductor will use the name as a rehearsal mark. And anyway, playing
a part, I rarely have the tune so working it out isn't an option. If
it's in the part I'm copying, I really ought to copy it.

Cheers,
Wol