Re: Microtone accidentals

[Trevor Bača]

On 10/8/07, Maximilian Albert <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> here is the last and biggest unfinished project that has been resting on
> my hard drive for a while: Arrowed accidentals for microtone notation.
>
> At present Lilypond already has good support for quarter- and other
> microtones (see, e.g., section 6.1.4 of the manual or the NEWS file of
> v2.11 where Turkish makam music is mentioned). But from earlier requests
> on this list it seems that at least some composers frequently use
> accidentals with up- and down-arrows to indicate microtones, which is
> not yet natively supported by Lilypond (although I seem to remember
> another thread proposing a postcript-based workaround).
>
> Inspired by a request a while ago I started to implement these arrowed
> accidentals as new glyphs in their own right. At that time I encountered
> problems with the design of the arrowhead because it either turned out
> too small or was poorly separated from the surrounding stafflines.
>
> Attached is a sample [1] of redesigned glyphs where this problem is
> hopefully solved. IMHO the size, blackness, and overall style of the
> arrowheads goes together well the accidentals, but I have the slight
> fear that the arrowheads might be a bit too small to be legible when
> printed. Unfortunately I don't own a high resolution printer myself, so
> I can only judge the design based on the visual appearance on the screen
> (which seems to be fine).
>
> Thus I would be extremely grateful if someone with a good printer could
> comment on the design (of course, other comments from the experts and
> interested users are very welcome, too). If there are no problems
> related to legibility and the design is approved of by the main
> developers, I'd be glad to send over a patch (I presume that there is
> interest to include them in Lilypond?).
>
> Otherwise please let me know how the glyphs can be improved (or at least
> what is wrong with them). I don't know the exact timeline for v2.12, and
> I will be able to invest only little time in the near future, I'm
> afraid, but if there is interest to include them and it turns out that
> not too many adaptions need to be made, it would be terrific if they
> made it into the new stable release.


Hi Max,

These are outstanding!

I don't have access to a true high-resolution printer, but the output
on my end is perfectly legible and I'd very much like to have access
to these new glyphs for use in my own scores.

So the versions here certainly have my vote of approval. What do the
real engraving gurus on the list think?

Engraving gurus?

Also, I have a question: have you given any thought to adding these
same arrows to the quartertone accidentals as well? Some composers
(myself included here) use the "regular" quartertone accidentals when
we mean a pitch that is *exactly* within 24-tone ET and then use the
arrowed accidentals to mean "just a little bit higher (or lower) than
exact pitch specified by the accidental". (I guess this means that I
use the arrows to indicate a type of "detuning" relative to the exact
pitch specified by the "base" accidental.) I don't mean to induce
scope creep on your work ... but I'm fairly certain that the arrowed
accidentals will meet with very good adoption and ... it will be only
a matter of time before you receive the feature request!

:-)

These arrowed accidentals will be a real asset to Lily; I hope the
folks with the really sharp eyes approve the design and that we can
make these available in the standard distribution soon!



Trevor.


-- 
Trevor Bača
address@hidden