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Re: Verse-chorus-verse with repeat, multiple ending, pick-up, and varyin


From: Carl Sorensen
Subject: Re: Verse-chorus-verse with repeat, multiple ending, pick-up, and varying rhythm
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:25:25 -0600

On 3/22/11 6:59 PM, "Christopher R. Maden" <address@hidden> wrote:

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> 
> Thanks to Peter, Carl, and Johan for the help.  (Hmm... yet another
> mailing list I share with Johan < why am I not surprised?)  I¹ve
> reposted the files at <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ambletown.ly > and
> <URL: http://crism.maden.org/ambletown.pdf > if anyone cares.
> 
> Carl Sorensen wrote:
>> \repeat unfold 50 {\skip 1} is your friend.  I'm not sure why that's not an
>> acceptable way to do it.
> 
> I was unfamiliar with the mysteries of \repeat unfold... that worked
> pretty well.

Good!

> 
>> I'm not sure what this means.  What do you mean by "a way to indicate
>> varying rhythm on the different verses"?
> 
> LilyPond is aware that this section of music is being played four times
> through.  It would be nice if there were a way to indicate that the
> second time through, it should be slightly different in this way, but
> without the whole alternative ending bracket overhead (literally or
> figuratively).

Yes, but that's precisely why I don't have a vision of it.  The semantics of
repeat means that the repeat *is* exactly the same all four times.  I know
of no way in general music to indicate that the body of the repeat varies
from repetition to repetition.  In vocal music of my experience, it's
generally done with notes at the finest time resolution that are connected
with slurs and then melismata are used on the lyrics that span multiple
notes.

> 
> I guess my dissatisfaction with \skip and the alternate rhythms stems
> from the fact that LilyPond is a hybrid of a music engraving system and
> a music representation system.  With a little more work, I could make a
> MIDI of this song, and it would play four times through with a slightly
> different ending the last time.  LilyPond is clearly aware at a semantic
> level, not just a typesetting level, that there is a sequence of notes,
> wrapped up in a repeat for convenience.  (And LilyPond would definitely
> know to play the pickups from the first ending alternative, not the
> pickups from before the first verse, if they were different.)  That led
> to my surprise that there wasn¹t an easy, straightforward way to
> associate the sequence of words with the sequence of notes, and have the
> words wrapped up for display the same way the notes are.  As it stands,
> there is nothing semantically to indicate whether the four verses¹ words
> are to be sung sequentially, or all at once (four times over), or as
> different language alternatives, or anything else.

Interestingly enough, if you look at the last layout in my example, there is
nothing semantically in the notes to indicate how they are to be played.
All of the semantics of the repeat are in the structure variable, and the
notes just go along in increasing time.  The structure variable puts the
repeat symbols and the volta brackets in on the staff.

So I guess the staff carries the semantics, and the voices are in the staff,
and the lyrics are associated to the voices in the staff.  So both the
voices and the lyrics inherit their semantics from the staff.

There has been some discussion on improving the semantics of repeats.  See
issue 791 for a link to some discussion on it.  But nobody is currently
working on it as far as I can see.

Thanks,

Carl





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