Re: Does the center of the staff need to be zero?

[Kevin Dalley]

I misread your G clef comment the first time I read it.

The G clef is correct, if you change your interpretation a bit.  It
confused me for quite a while also.  The documentation needs to be
improved, but I haven't figured out exactly how.

The G-clef is centered around the G note.  The center of the staff at
B above middle C, however many lines there are.

So a 4-line G-clef leaves the G-clef centered around a space,
rather than around a bar.

If you typeset a G note, it will be in the same position on the G
clef.

There are variables to tweak if you want to change the default
values.  middleCPosition and clefPosition.  Something like this will
create a staff

\new Staff \with {
  middleCPosition = #-2
  clefGlyph = #"clefs.G"
  clefPosition = #2
}
{
  \time 4/4
  \notes
}


Juergen Reuter <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi, all!
>
> Just a few comments:
>
> Actually, binding the origin to a staff line (e.g. the most lower
> staff line) rather than to the center of the origin (as we currently
> do) would solve the current problem that you have to design clefs
> explicitly either for staves with an even number of staff lines or for
> staves with an odd number of staff lines.  In this sense, I would
> really welcome such a change (even though some of the ancient clefs
> would then have to be shifted by 1/2 staff line in the metafont code)!
>
> If you do not understand what I mean, then just try to apply the
> ordinary G clef to a score with 4 staff lines or 6 staff lines instead
> of the ordinary 5 staff lines.  You will see that the clef will always
> be off 1/2 staff line (unless you do some y-offset trickery with
> backend properties).
>
> However, the drum clef will suffer from such a change, since the drum
> clef is usually always centered on the staff, regardles of the number
> of staff lines.  I think, the drum clef is the only clef for which
> this problem will arise.  Also, I am not sure if there are some
> serious implications of such a change for the pitch squash engraver.