Re: [Denemo-devel] Ukulele fret diagrams

[Richard Shann]

On Mon, 2016-06-13 at 16:09 +0100, Joe Wilkinson wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> I am having a problem with Uke fret diagrams.
> The log file shows that there is no "string" for the 4th string.
> The problem being, I guess that a Uke is tuned g-above-midC, midC, 
> e_above_midC and a-above-midC, in so-called re-entrant tuning.
> this would provide ambiguities in many chords, since 2nd fret of string 
> 4 has the same tone as open string 1.
> 
> I thought I could get round this by pretending that the Uke was tuned 
> with its bottom string g-below-midC - see denemo file attached.
> But the typesetter seems to know that the uke doesn't go that low!
> I looked in the denempprintB.ly file and it has \include 
> "predefined-ukulele-fretboards.ly"
> Ive looked in "predefined-ukulele-fretboards.ly" and it looks as if it 
> has the chord shapes already defined.
> Have you any idea how they can be actioned?

This isn't something I've investigated, but I just had a look at the
LilyPond documentation at
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/common-notation-for-fretted-strings#predefined-fret-diagrams

and I cooked up the following by mashing together bits of the examples:

\include "predefined-ukulele-fretboards.ly"

myChords = {  < c' f'>1
    < b' g'>1 }

\new FretBoards {
  \set Staff.stringTunings = #ukulele-tuning
  \myChords
}

which is something you could generate via Denemo. But how this relates
to the chord shapes defined I don't know - it would need some
experimentation to find out if certain patterns of notes in the chords
would prompt the emission of some particular pre-defined chord shape -
that is what I would guess would happen.

> Or have I missed something?

No, it's just unexplored territory for Denemo. Best would be to take
that example above and put in some realistic notes and see if it springs
into life. If not, post it to the address@hidden list as there
are real enthusiasts there who will be keen to help. (Most of the
examples enter the chords in something called "chordmode" which does
have a life inside Denemo, but wouldn't be so convenient to use).

Richard