RE: Possible multiple bugs, any way around?

[Philip Thomas]

>Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2012 15:50:10 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Sami <address@hidden>
>To: address@hidden
>Subject: Re: Possible multiple bugs, any way around?
>Message-ID: <address@hidden>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>>Only if there is unrepeated music played before the repeated sections.
>Otherwise putting in any more >elements than are necessary can cause
>unnecessary visual clutter.  Ask me how I know.  ;-)
>>
>>Look at most jazz lead sheets, there is usually no equivalent of \bar
>"|:"
>at the start or \bar ":|" at the end.  >A prime exception is some lead
>sheets where the form is truncated with repeats so that it stays on a
>single
>>page (e.g., "Waltz For Debby" in the old illegal Real Books, which has
>nested repeats to negotiate).  But >most standards start with no repeat
>glyph and end with the equivalent of \bar "|." yet everyone knows to
>>repeat
>the forms as needed.
>>
>>Tim
>
>I got this habit working with big bands. They don't use them there
>often,
>but I wish they did. I have a small of markers at hand to highlight
>repeats,
>key changes, tempo changes, the most notable dynamics, segnos, codas
>etc,
>and I always wanted to highlight the beginning and ending of a repeated
>section, to avoid on the job mistakes, esp. if I had to sightread hard
>material on stage. So, I grew to like them. It forms an nice little
>entity
>there for my eyes, start here, finish there...

Hi Sami,

I'm in the camp, with you, that prefers this particular bit of clutter. An
end repeat barline makes my poor underworked neurons look feverishly for the
begin repeat barline, and if it doesn't leap out at me, I'm in trouble. But
I mostly sing more classical stuff. Jazz players live lives replete with
repeats, and will have more acute reflexes than mine.

To insert a repeat barline at the very beginning, however, there is a
snippet on exactly this point in the Notation Reference in section 1.4.1
"Long repeats" under the heading "Manual repeat marks" (see page 130 in the
PDF version of the Notation reference, or see the web version at:
http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.14/Documentation/notation/long-repeats#manual
-repeat-marks
The snippet is headed "Printing a repeat sign at the beginning of a piece"
and can be found under that heading in the web version or at page 132 in the
PDF version. HTH.

Adjustment of the ordering of these symbols is possible, but as I discovered
recently it's not one for beginners to do anything fancy with. It will get
you into the wonderful world of so-called "break alignment", meaning the
ordering of various musical symbols (clefs, time signatures, etc., as well
as barlines) before and after line breaks. In fact, however, the topic
covers the ordering of those elements in the middle of lines as well (i.e.
where there is no break). If you want to pursue some of the possibilities,
see the Internals Reference at section 3.1.22 "BreakAlignment" and other
areas cross-referred to from there.

It is not a totally impenetrable topic, but as a not-much-more-advanced
beginner than you, I personally found it rather a jigsaw puzzle. I never did
find out what a "vector" is, or how to understand, successfully manipulate,
or vary the number "3" following "make-vector" in the snippet. However, I
did eventually manage to put together some perfectly sound (I hope) code
which had the effect of ending a line with a new time signature _following_
a _double_ barline, followed immediately on the next line with the time
signature _preceding_ a _begin repeat_ barline (as it should under what I
understand to be the accepted musical convention, although unfortunately not
in Lily's default). This involved the elapse of many hours, the consumption
of certain beverages in some quantity, and the uttering of some very
colorful language. I felt good at the end of it, though. :)

Cheers, Philip