Re: Gt-tabs and drum-notation

[Rune Zedeler]

Den 02-Mar-01 skrev David Raleigh Arnold:

DRA> I value your skills highly, and your system may well work. :-)

Don't value my skills until I've implementet something - all I have done yet
is described how I would like it to work when it is finished... That doesn't
take much skill.

DRA> What if there are two high e strings? A seven-string banjo, a big deal
DRA> in the 1850's, has two high e strings. It used guitar tuning with an

Then you would have to enter the note by string, like this:
f'-1 To use first string; f'-2 to use next string.

DRA> Is it easy to understand?

Yes, as long as you just fokus on "enter by string", it's as easy to
understand as anything.
If you would, you could enter the g-major-scale as

g-3 a-3 b-2 c'-2 d'-2 e'-1 fis'-1 g'-1

People don't understanding this shouldn't use LilyPond at all.

DRA> Is it easy to find the errors?

Yes. Look at the output, and use point-and-click. (Never tried it, though)

DRA> Guitar tab is mainly for musical illiterates, who are necessarily
DRA> incompetent as musicians. Are they going to be able to use this or is
DRA> this just for us smart people? ;-)

Yeah, but do you think that those "musical illiterates" would create their own
tabs?
Writing tabs are mainly for music teachers.

DRA> What about cases where the notation has to differ from the tab? Rational
DRA> ways of indicating, or *not* indicating in the tab, a bent note, a slack
DRA> key, 8va, harmonics, percussive elements, and ornaments for example?

In those cases you would have to create two melodies, and then use the one for
the tab and the other for the staff:

MeloStaff = \notes { c'4 d'( )e' f'16()ges'16()f'8 }
MeloTab   = \notes { c'4-2-\flasheolet d' \glissando e' f'^"bend" }
\score {
  \context GrandStaff <
    \context GuitarTab \notes { 
        \apply #(lambda (x) (tab-music guitar))
        \MeloTab
    }
    \context Staff \notes {
        \MeloStaff
    }
  >
}

or whatever...
 
DRA> tablines g = g,
DRA> 
DRA> \tab
DRA> gg a b c d e fis g' a' b' c' d' etc. or
DRA> g0 a 4 c d e 11 12 14 16 etc.
[... much later ...]
DRA> I can see that it doesn't challenge
DRA> your abilities sufficiently. May lack of challenge be the worst thing
DRA> that ever happens to you! :-)

What I want to do is using the existing syntax.
What you want me to do is creating new syntax.
Believe me: What I have in mind will be much easier to implement than what you
have in mind.
And again: Don't talk about my abilities (still sitting with my nose in that
Scheme-manual) until you've seen some results. :)

DRA> Typing in \notes is more like music engraving than dragging symbols
DRA> around with a mouse is. You absolutely don't do engraving linearly.
DRA> First the stafflines, clefs, key and time sigs, bars, noteheads, outer
DRA> stems, beams, inner stems, flags, dots, etc. You don't see the work as a
DRA> whole, you are always directing your attention to one element. This

I also compose my own music, and I know how to work with it.
I think I would prefer it the way I have in mind, and I think that most other
people would, too.

DRA> I'm sorry if that makes you angry.

No, I'm not angry at all. :-))) Happy that someone is interrested in what I
create.

DRA> If I could actually make a lot of money adding tablature to notation, I
DRA> am such a hypocrite that would probably do it, but I am sure that I
DRA> would also want a piano version, too. Isn't entering nonmusical elements
DRA> separately the easiest way to keep the notes portable from instrument to
DRA> voice, etc.? Isn't that what makes notation the crowning glory of

Well, that's not the idea of Lily now, is it.
You already attach fingering, marks, etc directly to the notes.
If you want stuff like same melody for two instruments you will have to do
some copy-pasting - or to trick a bit with some engravers, I know that.


-Rune