Re: major feature request (tablature)

[Carl D. Sorensen]

On 12/5/08 6:47 PM, "Danalute" <address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
>> 
>> 
> Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Unfortunately, you don't give any concrete problems with the TabStaff of
>> LilyPond. Can you elaborate a little bit on what is not acceptable and
>> what
>> could be improved?
>> 
> 
> I wanted to keep that message short, I was asking if the members of this
> development team would welcome this issue, at least for discussion, if not
> eventual implementation.
> 

I can't speak for the whole development team, but I suspect that nobody on
the team is going to run out and implement your desired tablatures (That's
the bad news).  The good news is that I believe you'll get lots of support
if you decide to jump in and become part of the development team to improve
tablature.  At least that was my experience when I wanted to get fret
diagrams added to LilyPond.

> There are issues with both the printed results and the grammer for
> inputting.

I would recommend that you first focus on the printed results.  The input
syntax can be developed through the use of a new mode (say tabmode, to go
along with chordmode and lyricmode), but tabmode by itself does no good.
First, focus on getting the output you need.  Then, once the output is done
you can add the input mode.

> 
> Please do not assume this list is exhaustive.
> 
> For background, many historical plucked instruments had multiple strings
> arranged in courses, some used single strings, many a mixture of both
> (citterns often had tripple and guadrupple strung middle courses).  For
> those of you who are unfamiliar with  historical tablature, I will begin
> with a breif overview.
> 
> Tablature abstracts music by telling you where to place your fingers to make
> the notes of it.  For a plucked insturment, a list of glyphs may be used to
> label nut&fret/string intersections (german), or a shorter list of glyphs
> may be used to lable the nut and frets, and course is implied by which line
> or space the glyph is placed on (french, italian).  Some instruments are
> incompletely fretted (diatonic citterns).  Some instruments have numerous
> bass courses, some of which are not stopped but only sounded open.
> 

LilyPond currently has support for frets and strings, so the raw material
necessary to define these glyphs and courses is available.  That's good
news.

> Rows of fret glyphs surmounted by a row of flags make a matrix which defines
> chords and gives minimal duration between them.  Duration of individual fret
> glyphs beyond the flag indications is a matter of players choice.  It should
> be noted that most of these plucked instruments have limited sustain, more
> percussive than sustained, so this limitation in the notation is usually not
> an issue for the music.

Based on your words, I can't construct the written music.  A scan of such
notation, or a link to such notation on the web, would help tremendously.

> 
> German tablature  labels each fret/course intersection uniquely emplying an
> extended alphabet which is used non-intuitively.  Rows of fretglyphs present
> strands of musical polyphony.  Horizontal lines are sometimes printed to
> visually seperate the rows, but have no musical significance.
> 
> French and Italian tablature labels the frets, and presents rows of
> fret-glyphs for the notes on each course; with chords aligned vertically.
> Italian tab present the first course on the lowest row, french places the
> first course in the higest row (just under the flags).  Lines are printed
> between or thru the glyphs depending on the source.
> 
> Historical tablature always seperates the rythmic flags, in many cases they
> are used sparsely (omited when duplicating previous value).  Flags are
> presented in their own row above the staff, vertically aligned with the fret
> glyph(s) they begin.  The tablature editions of Otaviano Petrucci have a
> unique way, flags float one space above the fretglyphs, rising fast, but
> falling slow - avoiding collision with the fretglyphs below them, but also
> leading the eye horizontally.
> 
> Present scheme of entry requires (pitch/duration) pairs, this works well for
> mensural staff notation and is natural for the musician and composer both in
> entry and editing, perfect for \staff.
> 
> Not for \tabstaff tho, the player of a plucked instrument who is using and
> editing tablature is thinking of where his fingers are, not what the notes
> will be; for \tabstaff it is most natural to think in terms of the fret and
> course, not the pitch, and what is thought should be wat is entered, the
> computer can and should deal with the conversion (and only as it needs to).
> 

As mentioned above, special input can be done, but should probably be the
last part of the package.  As LilyPond currently supports fret, course, and
finger, it is currently possible to enter music for tablature output.

> Freted plucked instruments provide multiple ways to play most of the notes
> possible on them.  fret/course pair data is unambiguous are should be what
> is recorded.  A table of open course pitches and simple calculations allows
> lookup of the pitch for each glyph when its musical semantics are required.
> This table could be specified as a parameter to the \tabstaff tag as a list
> of the glyphs for each course (for german), or (for french and italian) as a
> list for courses i-n.

We already have the table of open course pitches in LilyPond, it's called
StringTunings.
> 
> Barogue lutes often had several extra bass course which are are only played
> open (not stopped).  These are commonly treated as if they were stops on the
> lowest fingered bass course, and need a seperate list of fret glyph with its
> pitch (not always tuned chromatically).
> 
> As the flag and fretglyphs are presented seperately, so should they be
> entered.  Musical semantics can (and should be) be derived from stored
> information.

If flags and fretglyphs are to be entered, then there will need to be a
separate input mode for each tablature style.  This may be what you want to
do, but it would seem to me to be more robust to enter fret, course, and
duration.  But, as I mentioned earlier, input syntax should be determined
and coded only *after* the output is in place.

Based on your earlier email, it appears that you have the programming
skills, the knowledge of tablature, and the interest to make the desired
improvements to tablature become a reality.  Let me be the first to
welcome you to the development team.  We'd love to help you as you work
to improve LilyPond's tablature support.

Sincerely,

Carl Sorensen