Re: Verse-chorus-verse with repeat, multiple ending, pick-up, and varying rhythm

[Christopher R. Maden]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Thanks to Peter, Carl, and Johan for the help.  (Hmm... yet another
mailing list I share with Johan — why am I not surprised?)  I’ve
reposted the files at <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ambletown.ly > and
<URL: http://crism.maden.org/ambletown.pdf > if anyone cares.

Carl Sorensen wrote:
> \repeat unfold 50 {\skip 1} is your friend.  I'm not sure why that's not an
> acceptable way to do it.

I was unfamiliar with the mysteries of \repeat unfold... that worked
pretty well.

> Small notes can be produced with a CueVoice.  See Formatting cue notes in
> the Notation Reference, section 1.6.3 Writing Parts.

Thanks.  Rather than mucking about with the multiple voices to do that,
I took Johan’s suggestion to just leave that part as-is.

> You can use phrasing slurs instead of slurs.  These will represent both a
> slur and a tie.

Excellent.  And since dashing of phrasing slurs is controlled separately
from real slurs and ties, that made setting them all straightforward.

> I'm not sure what this means.  What do you mean by "a way to indicate
> varying rhythm on the different verses"?

LilyPond is aware that this section of music is being played four times
through.  It would be nice if there were a way to indicate that the
second time through, it should be slightly different in this way, but
without the whole alternative ending bracket overhead (literally or
figuratively).

I guess my dissatisfaction with \skip and the alternate rhythms stems
from the fact that LilyPond is a hybrid of a music engraving system and
a music representation system.  With a little more work, I could make a
MIDI of this song, and it would play four times through with a slightly
different ending the last time.  LilyPond is clearly aware at a semantic
level, not just a typesetting level, that there is a sequence of notes,
wrapped up in a repeat for convenience.  (And LilyPond would definitely
know to play the pickups from the first ending alternative, not the
pickups from before the first verse, if they were different.)  That led
to my surprise that there wasn’t an easy, straightforward way to
associate the sequence of words with the sequence of notes, and have the
words wrapped up for display the same way the notes are.  As it stands,
there is nothing semantically to indicate whether the four verses’ words
are to be sung sequentially, or all at once (four times over), or as
different language alternatives, or anything else.

Consider, for example, a karaoke application.[*]  A LilyPond source file
is 90% or 95% of the way there to being able to display the appropriate
lyric on a screen at the same time the notes are playing.  However, my
score, even based on interpreting the stanza numbers, suggests that
chorus is only sung the first time, and is silent every other time.

Consider this a very low-priority feature request, I guess. (-:  I am
quite happy with the results so far, and will definitely be using this
more in the future.

~crism

[*] For the record, I really dislike karaoke.  But it might be a nice
way to learn a song from a score like this.
- -- 
Chris Maden, text nerd  <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ >
“Those in power write the history, while those who suffer
 write the songs.” — Frank Harte
GnuPG Fingerprint: C6E4 E2A9 C9F8 71AC 9724 CAA3 19F8 6677 0077 C319
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAk2JRdYACgkQGfhmdwB3wxlzcACgkoLck7eGOoO/4u01uFBqQKal
M7cAnAghRk7SdAGBg9QCRic2Q+sl11Ge
=Dp3M
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----