Re: [Lilypond-auto] Issue 3065 in lilypond: Baroque french tab support

[lilypond]

Comment #2 on issue 3065 by address@hidden: Baroque french tab  
support
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=3065

There was a long discussion on the tablature mailing list at lilynet.net  
around 3 years ago, but the archives for that list seem to have gone  
missing.  At the time I began implementing this, but only managed to add  
the means of showing fingering with letters rather than numbers before I  
had to abandon the work due to RSI in my wrist.  One email I posted to the  
tablature list in Nov 2009 might still be of interest, shown here slightly  
edited.

Trevor

--- note from address@hidden --- 15/11/2009 ---

I was inspired by the appearance of the Baroque lute tablature
produced by Fronimo and the interest shown in adding this capability
to LilyPond by several users, including Dana Emery, Laura Conrad,
Marc Hohl and others recently.  I've been considering how this
functionality might be added to LilyPond.  As a reminder, examples
of this tablature can be seen at
http://www.mateus-lutes.com/tablature/.

I've attached a pdf showing what can be achieved by modifying the
input stream to insert markups to render the durations above the
tab context and the bass courses below the tab context, but
otherwise
using just standard LilyPond input syntax.  This is
the first two systems from the mateus-lutes site referenced above.

The Scheme for doing this is rather messy - it was just a lash-up
to see what was possible by applying a function to the input
stream -
but as this is not the way it should be implemented I'm not
attaching it.

Here's what I've learned:

a) Most of the glyphs needed to output Baroque lute tablature
would need to be designed.  The glyphs used for the fret indications
and bass courses I 'borrowed' from the Fronimo site - these would
need to be redesigned for LilyPond as the Fronimmo licence does not
permit commercial use.  The glyphs used for the durations are taken from
the standard LilyPond font set, but are not so beautiful as the Fronimo
durations; they could with advantage be redesigned but are OK for a
starter.  There are also a few more glyphs like the section
separator and end-of-piece indicator that would need to be designed.

b) Markups above and below a standard tab seems quite satisfactory
to indicate durations and bass courses, and are easy to implement.

c) Right hand fingerings and string indications can be easily
rendered in Baroque style, although the precise placement of the right hand
fingerings will need more control.

d) I haven't yet looked into adding the decorations (the comma, the
small curve and line under notes) mainly because I'm not sure what
they represent musically.

e) But the big lesson is that transcribing from tab to tab via
notemode is totally impractical.  I and many lutenists do not
know what pitch a particular fingering generates.  A tabmode entry
form will be essential.  This has some obvious difficulties,
the main one being the lack of information about how accidentals
should be represented when outputted in a standard staff.  Not
sure what to do about this.



Attachments:
        lutetab-as-markup-16.pdf  157 KB