Re: stylesheets, defaults, and other in-Pond-erables

[Rachael Thomas Carlson]

Hello:

On Thu, 2013-07-18 at 15:52 -0400, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> > I'm hoping to break out a series of stylesheets (or stylesheet sets):
> >     instrument (e.g., violin) solo
> >     piano solo
> >     piano + vocal
> >     piano + solo instrument
> >     organ solo
> >     instrumental ensemble (e.g., piano quartet)
> >     chorus a cappella
> >     orchestra
> >     orchestra + chorus
> 
> I've found lovely examples of piano + vocal, organ solo, chorus + piano 
> reduction, orchestra, and orchestra + chorus in my library. (Most are 
> Bärenreiter, so I'm sticking close to Lilypond's inspirational roots…)
> 
A fingerstyle guitar benchmark would be "Aerial Boundaries," by Michael
Hedges as transcribed by John Stropes in _Rhythm, Sonority, Silence_
(1995).  I don't feel comfortable putting pictures of the transcription
onto a public list so if you would like a picture of a couple pages I
could get those to you personally.  (I know John Stropes and he would
not be happy with me doing something such as that.)

> So now I really need a benchmark for instrument solo, piano solo, piano + 
> solo instrument, instrumental ensemble, and chorus a cappella. (I have some 
> scores in my library, of course, but none of them are stunning enough to 
> consider using as a benchmark.)
> 
> Regardless of the engraving/publishing house these benchmarks come from, I 
> think the resulting Lilypond stylesheets should ONLY use fonts which are 
> available in the default Lilypond installation (e.g., New Century Schoolbook).
> 
> Later on, when we make "house styles" (for those who really want, e.g., their 
> music theatre song to look like it came from a modern Warner Bros. songbook), 
> we can use non-standard fonts.
> 
> Cheers,
> Kieren.
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Solo Fingerstyle guitar demands a lot of flexibility in the tabulature
staff.  This is something that really sets apart professional from
amateur Fingerstyle guitar transcriptions.

The standard for Solo fingerstyle guitar can be found at Stropes
Editions, LLC.  <www.stropes.com> One can view an article that John
wrote that has on the second page of the article the first page of
"Ragamuffin," by Michael Hedges here:
http://www.stropes.com/refdocs/raga.pdf .  What you see here has been
developed a bit over the years.  But I provide it as an example of
minutiae that is conveyed in solo fingerstyle guitar transcription.

I have basically made a mental list of all of the issues that I have
with it (something that is really nice is that Lilypond fixes those
issues by default); I would certainly be willing to share that with
y'all.  But the crux of the issue with solo Fingerstyle guitar
transcriptions lies with the community's use of Finale.  Myself and one
other person (hopefully) have started to reassess the standards of
Fingerstyle guitar transcription stylesheets.  I have stressed, in my
fingerstyle community, the importance of software freedom and the like,
but what really gets them is that I can put string-dampening into my
transcriptions without an external program.  I have also been planting
seeds in the minds of my community regarding some of the major faults of
Finale and Stropes Editions.  Most of the faults relate to readability. 

Kieren, I would love to help you put together a Fingerstyle guitar
stylesheet.  I have been basically producing one myself; I would love to
make it widely available.  Please let me know how I can help.

Sorry for the rambling email,
Rachael Thomas Carlson