Re: Barre grob - appearance

[Thomas Morley]

Am Mo., 29. Aug. 2022 um 23:20 Uhr schrieb Jeff Olson <jjocanoe@gmail.com>:
>
>
> On 8/27/2022 5:36 AM, Thomas Morley wrote:
> > Ofcourse, one can find several
> > codings here on the list, in LSR, I have some own as well. All are
> > (ab)using spanners like TextSpanner or hijacking other grobs like
> > Arpeggio.
>
> As an old amateur guitarist, I'm looking forward to a better barre
> solution.  Thank you, Harm, for taking this on!
>
> In the mean time there are existing solutions that are NOT based on
> spanners.
>
> The system I've been using for years is based on the similarities of
> barres and position indicators.  Both are indicators for overall
> placement of the hand along the neck.  Both typically use Roman
> numerals.  Both occupy the same visual space above the staff, and hence
> both are read by the eye like the different words in the same sentence
> about "Where do I put my hand?".  The more detailed question of "Where
> do I put my fingers?" is handled as a separate issue using Arabic
> numerals within the staff.
>
> The system is easily described, as in this footnote to the reader:
>
>      Roman numerals above the staff indicate hand positions on the
> fretboard and remain in effect until the
>      next such indication.  A barre is indicated by prefixing the Roman
> numeral with a small “b_” for a small
>      barre or a large “B_” for a large barre at that position.
>
> Admittedly, this system alone isn't going to express all the nuances in
> your inner barre examples, but my arrangements are for intermediate
> guitarists, and they seem to catch on to it quickly (and most, like me,
> can scarcely do an inner barre).
>
> Implementation in lilypond is trivial, by including definitions like these:
>
> % guitar neck position indicators
> pI    = ^\markup { "I" }
> pII   = ^\markup { "II" }
> pIII  = ^\markup { "III" }
> pIV   = ^\markup { "IV" }
>
> % large barre
> BpI    = ^\markup { "B_I" }
> BpII   = ^\markup { "B_II" }
> BpIII  = ^\markup { "B_III" }
> BpIV   = ^\markup { "B_IV" }
>
> % small barre
> bpI    = ^\markup { "b_I" }
> bpII   = ^\markup { "b_II" }
> bpIII  = ^\markup { "b_III" }
> bpIV   = ^\markup { "b_IV" }
>
> The resulting code is very compact and stands out nicely in
> Frescobaldi's color highlighting, as shown in the attached image
> alt-barre-frescobaldi.png.
>
> The output appearance from this same example is shown in the attached
> alt-barre-appearance.png.  This is from a lengthy arrangement for two
> guitars I published five years ago, which is why it was intentionally
> crowded to reduce the page count.  In some of the cases shown, I had to
> cheat on the placement of the position indicators, e.g. in m44.
>
> I'm hoping that whatever solution you create will play well with other
> grobs in crowded situations.  As you mentioned two weeks ago, "Notation
> of classical guitar is one of the most complex ones". There's already a
> lot of other important visual clutter, even in the simple example I've
> attached (e.g. slurs and beams on the same notes under the barre).
> Reminds me of Alice's Restaurant
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Restaurant> "... with circles
> and arrows and a paragraph on the back ... explaining what each one was
> ...".  We just don't want our creations "... to be used as evidence
> against us".  :-)
>
> Jeff
>

Hi Jeff,

thanks for your input.
Your barre-signs are a valid method and should be possible to be
printed (and indeed missing in the image I sent with the initial
mail).
Simply by omitting all lines, vertically and horizontally, likely by
setting (sub)properties, just giving the text-part.

Best,
  Harm