Beginner's questions about long repeats & MIDI files

[Mojca Miklavec]

 Hi,

I have some simple beginner's questions about different aspects of
repeats, mostly from the perspective of creating proper MIDI files.

1.) Let's assume that the song has one of the following patterns

Intro-A1-A2-B1-B2-A1-A2-A3

Intro-A1-A2-B1-B2-A1-A2-B1-B3

A1 = part A with the first ending
B3 = part B with the third ending etc.

Can the song be written in such a way that one could get the proper
engraving & the proper midi file at the same time (in particular for
the second example which is easier)?

Or is the only way to do it properly to create a separate melody for
engraving and a separate one for MIDI? Something like:

melodyIntro = {...}
melodyA = {...}
melodyAI = {...}
melodyAII = {...}
...
melodyScores = {
    \melodyIntro
    \repeat volta 2 { \melodyA }
    \alternative {{ \melodyAI }{ \melodyAII }}
    \repeat volta 2 { \melodyB }
    \alternative {{ \melodyBI }{ \melodyBII }}
   ...
}
melodyMIDI = {...}

2.) Sometimes I have a very simple repeat pattern, say, part A repeats
four times.
The only difference is that the third time "c2." gets replaced by "c2
c4" somewhere in the middle due to an additional syllable in the
lyrics.

a) What's the correct way to visually represent that? Drawing the full
c2. plus some additional c4 in parenthesis at the end? How do you type
it in? Or "c2(c4)" with a potentially dashed tie/slur/whatever that is
called.

b) How does one get a correct MIDI file? I can imagine writing

aa = {...}
ab = { c2. | }
ac = { c2 c4 | }
ad = {...}
aA = { \aa \ab \ad }
aB = { \aa \ac \ad}
melodyMIDI = { \aA \aA \aB \aA }

and slightly different approach for engraving to fake proper visual
appearance, but I'm sure there must be a more straightforward way with
some "if this is the third time of repeating this segment, do
something different for this one single note".

3.) I sometimes want to write repeats as | 1,3 | 2 | 4 |

Is there any better way than the following?

\alternative {
  {
    \set Score.repeatCommands = #'((volta "1, 3"))
    ...
  }
  {
    ...
  }
  {
    \set Score.repeatCommands = #'((volta "4") end-repeat)
    ...
  }
}

Is there a way to make this both appear correctly and play correctly
in a midi file?

4.) What's the proper way to write the following:

    c4 <c d>4 <c d e>4

when c's duration is actually "2." (a single button press) and d's
duration is "2" (again a single button press)? Should one draw c2. or
three c4, connected with a tie/slur?

5.) Is there any good "tutorial" about proper use of "D.S. al Fine"
and weird usages of those Segno signs? I've seen some, but wouldn't
mind seeing some nice reference just to make sure that I properly
understand the correct usage in all weird cases.

Thank you very much,
    Mojca


PS: please CC me