Re: major feature request (tablature)

[Carl D. Sorensen]

On 12/10/08 5:45 PM, "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
wrote:

> German tabs origins are, like all the forms, obscured by time.
> 
> It is reputed to have been  invented by Conrad Pauman, mid fifteenth
> century, as a way to record music for short-necked lutes having 5 courses.
>  The notation was extended for lutes having 6 or more courses and more
> frets, and we have lots of printed music and ms; but as each publisher and
> scribe extended the notation in a personal manner there are variants.
> 
> An edition of M Waissel's music printed by J Eichorn in 1573 (Frankfurt an
> der oder) shows the fretboard of a 6 course lute with one form of
> extension. Note, the fingerboard is viewed from above; intersection of nut
> and highest pitched string is labeled 5.
> 
> 5 e k p v 9 -e -k
> 4 d j o t 7 -d -j
> 3 c h n s z -c -h
> 2 b g m r y -b -g
> 1 a f l q x -a -f
> A B C D E G  H -J
> 
> another printer (Heckel) and his inheritee (Jobin) uses the following for
> 6th course
> 
> -1 -a -f -l -q -x -aa -ff -ll
> 
> 
> From the first piece in the Waissel edition, "Pass e Mezo" (first row is
> flags, giving duration)
> 
> 1  2 2 1  1    1  2 2  2 2 2 2   1  2 2  2 2 2 2 ...
> 
> 5  n 4 5  5  | 5  g 5  o d 4 n | 4  2 o  o d 4 n | ...
> d      d  4  | d           2   | c       c   2   | ...
> n      n  h  | n               | D       D       | ...
> J      J  A  | J               |                 | ...
> 
> 
> which might be entered
> 
> // preface, 4 row german tab, glyphs detailed...
> // hidden time signature common (often ommited, but used)
> // ? hidden key signature c (tab lacks key sigs)
> 
>   {1 {5,d,n,J}}
>   {2 {n}}
>   {2 {4}}
>   {5 {d,n,J}}
>   {5 {4,h,A}}
>   {thinbar}
>   ...

Dana,

It might be entered this way, but proabably not in LilyPond.  This syntax is
so different from LilyPond that it bears not even a shred of resemblance.
You're welcome to do whatever you want, but it seems to me to be totally
unwise to develop a syntax so foreign to LilyPond.

The ideal (in my opinion) would be to put tablature information right in
with the music input, so the exact same music expression can be passed to
the tablature and the staff (that's how LilyPond currently does it).  While
it may be a little bit more awkward for the person doing the transcription,
it greatly facilitates mixing tablature with staff notation.

If you have no interest in doing the mixing, then it would seem to me that
you'd be better off just writing your own tablature program.

If you do have interest in doing the mixing, then it seems to me that you
should start with the existing LilyPond input structures.  You've expressed
ways that the software could work, but the ways you've expressed don't match
up with the ways that LilyPond works.

I have a question, and it's meant to be sincere, not flippant.  Have you
ever set a piece using LilyPond?  If not, before you talk about making
changes I think it's important that you spend at least a little bit of time
setting some music to see how LilyPond works.

> 
> While an entirely ascii based input encoding is feasible and protean, the
> variety of german systems makes it desireable to allow the user to define
> the entry glyphs (which will sometimes be ligatures).

The entry glyphs do not have to be the display glyphs!  We don't enter
half-note heads for music, so why should we enter display ligatures for
tabulature.
> 
> Historical fonts are not always easy to read, typedesigners based their
> fonts on the handwriting in use by the presumed readership.  Civilte for
> french and english tablature, Blackletter for german were common choices.
> The results were good for historical readers, less so today when most folk
> are accustomed to Roman; this challenges the user entering data from an
> historical source.
> 
> Such a user can take advantage of a font similar to her source (I make a
> few based on historical tablature fonts) when entering data, especially
> for blackletter, in which case the encoding of the ligatured glyphs might
> need to be specifyable; easy to do, an ordered list of the glyphs gets
> typed at the same time as the input; no need to specify font.

LilyPond *is* strictly an ASCII/UTF-8 based input format.  There is *no*
facility for changing fonts used for input.  The font used for input is
determined by the editor used for creating the file, which is *not* a
LilyPond editor, in most cases.  The only LilyPond editors provided with
LilyPond are very rudimentary text editors, and it's recommended that you
get a better editor to use.

You seem to have most of your wishes for the new tablature capabilities tied
to an advanced input. If that's the case, maybe you ought to be thinking
about two separate stages.  One would be a graphical front end that you
could use to enter tablatures any way you like.  Its job would be to collect
input in a form that you like it, and convert it to a LilyPond input
ASCII/UTF-8 file.  The second would be a modification to LilyPond that would
let LilyPond create the kind of tablature you want.  This is the model of
Rosegarden/Canorus, and might be successfully used by you.
> 
> I have a list of some more variant glyph lists for 6th and more course
> german tab; couldnt find it in a short search at home, hope this is enough
> for now.

I'm not sure what you expect me or others to be doing with these variant
glyph lists.  I'm not coding up anything for your tablature facility, and I
seriously doubt anybody else is either.  I'm trying to give you suggestions
to help you mesh with LilyPond, but none of them seem to be sinking in.

Anyway, I'll provide what help I can, if you're serious about doing this, in
the form of suggesting where to look in the code.  But I've got my own
LilyPond coding projects that wil take my coding time.

Thanks,

Carl