Re: "repeat" slashes and the nature of lilypond

[Walter Hofmeister]

On 2/21/05 8:45 AM, "address@hidden" <address@hidden> wrote:

>> Your cause would be considerably furthered if you would come up with the
>> comprehensive user documentation, in the context of Lilypond as compared to
>> the others.
>> 
>> cheers
>> /Hans
> 
> As it appears the developers/users are not sympathetic to my cause, I
> will simply drop my request.
> 
Perhaps the user base is more sympathetic than you think. I for one have
found that for the folk based stuff I have notated, the current set up is
adequate. But for jazz I find the current scheme a bit wanting. For example
it is possible to change the Maj7 symbol to be either a triangle or text (I
can't say I have encountered any jazz source that refers to Maj7 chords as
j7).
    I looked through the chord name chart that is included in the
documentation and was surprised to find a couple of things that I have not
noticed before. For example how to get a m7b5 (half dim.7) I found that I
could get the small circle with the slash through it but it does not include
that 7th indication. The Major 7th with the triangle drops the 7th as well.
I understand that without the 7th you just get the capital letter, but here
in North America the defacto standard as I am aware is the Real Book. Here,
the Maj7 is Maj7 and half dim. 7 is m7b5, diminished chords are the small
chord (no seventh) and fully dim 7 is dim7.
    How tough would it be to be able to customize or choose these options? I
am not proposing a rework of how chords are handled but (hopefully) just a
line or two of code to add to the current definitions. I looked at the
files: chord-modifiers-init.ly, and the scheme (.scm) files and not being a
programmer, these all escaped me what was going on in them so I cannot
figure out a way to hack them. Perhaps others on the list would have
suggestions. Is there another standard in Europe? I am assuming that the
Ignatzek system is more common in Europe and this is why it was chosen as
the default. I should also point out that when I input chord names, I only
use the names (eg. e:maj7) as opposed to the naming of pitches (<e gs b ds>)

Thanks to the list for pondering this.

Walter Hofmeister