Re: Guitar String Numbers

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Tuesday 30 March 2004 04:01, Mats Bengtsson wrote:
> David Raleigh Arnold wrote:
> > Is there a way of using the backspace ($\\!$) with \markup?  I hope
> > there is, but I couldn't find it.
>
> You have already described how to do it. The problem is that when
> LilyPond positions the markup, it tries to find out how much space
> the markup occupies and since it doesn't understand LaTeX, it
> typically thinks that the LaTeX commands take more space than they
> actually do.
>
>  > Using \markup leaves the ring
> >
> > contents
> > considerably to the right of center also.  daveA
>
> I'm not sure what you mean. \markup {"\\textcircled{\\tiny 1}"}
> certainly puts the one in the middle of the circle (this is done
> entirely by LaTeX, LilyPond doesn't affect that). If you are talking
> about centering the full markup relative to the note head, then you
> probably see the problem described above.

Thanks for that clear explanation.  I thought that the benefit of using
\markup was that lilypond "knows" about the space it takes up.  Is
that the reason for using it, or is there some other or others?

BTW, that new search feature is *super*.

The centering problem is that the left edge of the ring is aligned with
the left edge of the note, so the ring's contents are moved to the
right.  It doesn't really put the number in the center of the circle, it
puts the left edge of the circle where the left edge of the number would
have been and moves the number to the right into the center of the
circle.  In text, any other way would be very unsatisfactory. You
want_g_string to become_(g)_string, not(g)string.

I couldn't find any way of using backspaces ($\\!$) with \markup, nor
could I figure out how to use \center-align with \\textcircled and
\markup.  I just got errors or no effect.  Maybe there's a way.  I tried
and failed to find it.  Perhaps since \center-align and \textcircled
both do alignment, they don't play nice together.  Just a guess.

In http://www.openguitar.com/files/tengtr.pdf there are many rings,
almost all in text, but section 9.1 has some on notes, and you can see
how off center they are.  In this particular case it's ok, but in
regular music it doesn't look so hot.  That particular opus didn't
really need string indications on single notes, and it is certainly
not typical.

I'm not at all sure that it would be worth it to be able to use \markup
for circleds if it had to become impossible to do it with latex.  I
have found that in some cases it is better to let rings overlap each
other a little or even collide with stems a bit rather than to reduce
the font size, and I'm not even using Do-Re-Mi strings.  In harmonica
music, using rings for draw, vertically overlapping rings look fine.
The hole numbers are more legible and less precious vertical space is
consumed.  As always, the more ways there are to do things the better.
daveA

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D. Raleigh Arnold dra@ (http://www.) openguitar.com address@hidden