Re: Mutable pronouns in Lyrics

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hello,

> I have some hymns which are sung on the occasion of saint's days which have 
> pronouns which refers to the saint.  Obviously, these pronouns should be 
> either "he", "his", "him" or "she", "her" depending on the gender of the 
> saint.  When producing scores which are unattached to a specific liturgy, I 
> would put "he/she", "his/her", "him/her" in the lyrics, however, when 
> including the hymn in a specific liturgy, I would like the pronoun to take 
> the appropriate form.  Is there a way to write (scheme) functions that allows 
> me to set a flag at the beginning of the score indicating which pronoun type 
> I want and the lyrics will change accordingly.

This could be a use-case for tags — see snippet, below.

I hope this helps!
Kieren.

%%%%  SNIPPET BEGINS
\version "2.19.50"

hisher = \lyricmode {
  \tag #'male { his }
  \tag #'female { her }
  \tag #'malefemale { his/her }
}

heshe = \lyricmode {
  \tag #'male { he }
  \tag #'female { she }
  \tag #'malefemale { he/she }
}


global = { \key c \major }

verse = \lyricmode {
 Filled with the Spir -- it, by \hisher earth -- ly la -- bours,
 Brought to your peo -- ple heal -- ing and com -- pas -- sion;
 Rais -- ing the fal -- len, re -- con -- cil -- ing sin -- ners,
 Glad -- ly \heshe served them.
}

music = {
 c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c'
 c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c'
 c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c' c'
 c' c' c' c' c'
}

\markup "Male Version:"

\new Staff \keepWithTag #'male <<
  \new Voice = "mel" { \global \music }
  \new Lyrics \lyricsto "mel" { \verse }
>>

\markup "Female Version:"

\new Staff \keepWithTag #'female <<
  \new Voice = "mel" { \global \music }
  \new Lyrics \lyricsto "mel" { \verse }
>>

\markup "Male/Female Version:"

\new Staff \keepWithTag #'malefemale <<
  \new Voice = "mel" { \global \music }
  \new Lyrics \lyricsto "mel" { \verse }
>>
%%%%  SNIPPET ENDS
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden