Re: Handbell mallets

[Aaron Hill]

On 2018-12-14 9:58 pm, Rick Kimpel wrote:
> All,
> In handbell music, there is an articulation for playing the bell with
> a mallet while it is on the table. It looks like a "stopped" symbol
> near the note head, with a "staccato" articulation just beyond that. I
> can get reasonable results for notes near the top and bottom of the
> staff, but when I have something like
>
> {f8'-+-.[ f''-+-.]}
>
> one of the two will always look bad. Ideally, the + will be in the
> staff near the note head. Any ideas on how to achieve this without
> tweaking each articulation? I have half a mind to just use staccato
> and a note in the score.
>
> https://www.handbellworld.com/images/HandbellNotation/MalletWithHandbellOnTable.jpg

Creating a custom articulations is probably the best option, however you 
can also easily redefine the stencil for an existing one:

%%%%
\version "2.19.82"

% handbell mallet
hbm = \tweak stencil #(lambda (grob)
  (grob-interpret-markup grob #{ \markup \combine
      \raise #1 \musicglyph #"scripts.stopped"
      \musicglyph #"scripts.staccato"
    #})) \stopped

{ f'8-+-. [ f''-+-. ] f'\hbm [ f''\hbm ] }
%%%%

-- Aaron Hill