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feature request: syntax for vocal music to simplify autobeaming and meli


From: Russ Ross
Subject: feature request: syntax for vocal music to simplify autobeaming and melisma settings
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 02:53:14 +0000 (UTC)
User-agent: Loom/3.14 (http://gmane.org/)

When setting vocal music, auto beaming is normally off, except during melisma. 
I find myself constantly writing:

  \autoBeamOn <A>\melisma ... <B>\melismaEnd\autoBeamOff

This is quite cumbersome, so much so that I normally write it like this instead:

  <A>[[ ... <B>]]

and run a perl script to pre-process it with these regexps:

  s/([^ ]+)\[\[/\\autoBeamOn $1\\melisma/g;
  s/\]\]([^ ]*)/$1\\melismaEnd \\autoBeamOff/g;

I would like to request that this be added to the basic syntax rules.

The \autoBeamOn command comes before the first note of the melisma, but in my
notation it trails it to be more consistent with the "[" manual beaming
notation, and with other grouping rules likes slurs.

I realize that syntax changes must be approach with caution to avoid clutter,
but this is a pretty fundamental part of vocal score preparation, and it is a
pretty standard rule for typesetting vocal music.  It does not conflict with
existing syntax rules (to my knowledge anyway).  It would also be (less) useful
for instrumental parts as a way to control auto beaming, in which case turning
melisma settings on and off would be harmless.

A double bracket is simple and suggests beaming control, just as the single
bracket notation controls manual beaming.

I've used this for a few hundred pages of vocal scores with lilypond, and think
it would be useful for others.  I'd also love to cut out the pre-processing step
from my own scores.

I haven't been active on the lilypond mailing lists for several years, so I'd
like to also say throw out a "thank you!" for lilypond, and particularly for all
of the improvements I've seen over the last few years.

- Russ





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