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Re: Proposal for resolving Half/Quarter note ambiguity on pure tablatu


From: Ian Hulin
Subject: Re: Proposal for resolving Half/Quarter note ambiguity on pure tablature staves (with partial code mod)
Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:17:04 +0000
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (X11/20090105)

Ricdude wrote:
Ian Hulin <ian <at> hulin.org.uk> writes:
Hi Ric,
Ricdude wrote:
Quick intro: Mediocre guitarist/composer, Lilypond newbie,
Professional programmer.

I've got lilypond 2.10.33 (cygwin version), and, as some others have
noted, there is no way to resolve whether a straight stem on a
tablature staff refers to a half note, or a quarter note.

Although there's stuff missing in the default lilypond Tab, this is already fixed. Lily uses beamed, flagged staffs for the tab stems already, so there's no ambiguity between quarter notes (crotchets) and eighth notes (quavers).

The flags on the tablature staves work great for eighths, sixteenths, etc. Beaming, ties, slurs, etc. all work well.

It's just trying to tell the difference between a half note and a quarter note, since they use the same stems, with no flags.

Using upward stems as examples...

| e1 | e2 e4 e8. e16 |

currently renders as:
               _____
        |   |  |  _|
-----+--|---|--|---|----
-----+--|---|--|---|----
-----+--|---|--|---|----
--2--+--2---2--2.--2----
-----+------------------
-----+------------------

so it's hard to tell just from the output whether the second and third notes
are quarters or halves.
What I'd like to have output is something like:

        __        _____
        |     |   |  _|
-----+--|-----|---|---|----
-----+--|-----|---|---|----
-----+--|-----|---|---|----
--2--+--2-----2---2.--2----
-----+---------------------
-----+---------------------

Is there a way to customize flags for a staff? It looks like it's handled in the C++ code, and might be difficult to override. Plus, I'm fairly new to Scheme...

Ric, this is a problem. With your proposal the up stem for a half note will look uncomfortably like an unbeamed eighth note.

Maybe use
                   _____
         O     |   |  _|
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 --2--+--2-----2---2.--2----
 -----+---------------------
 -----+---------------------

or
                   _____
         ||    |   |  _|
 -----+--||----|---|---|----
 -----+--||----|---|---|----
 -----+--||----|---|---|----
 --2--+--2-----2---2.--2----
 -----+---------------------
 -----+---------------------

or
                   _____
         L     |   |  _|
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 --2--+--2-----2---2.--2----
 -----+---------------------
 -----+---------------------

or
         |     |   |  _|
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--|-----|---|---|----
 -----+--L-----|---|---|----
 --2--+--2-----2---2.--2----
 -----+---------------------
 -----+---------------------








I've seen this ambiguity handled in some tablatures by adding a short
straight line perpendicular to the end of the stem for half notes.
The result looks kind of like the letter L (sans-serif, and inverted
for upstems), about as wide as an eighth note flag.  Quarter notes
retain their "normal" straight staves in this notation system.

So a down-beam half-note tab for A major looks a bit like
         ---
         -2-
         -2-
         -2-
         ---
         ---
          __
          |
          |
          |

and a three-beat note would just have dots after the string number. indicators.

This works around the case nicely where standard notation uses black and white note heads to differentiate between quarter and half-notes. How does this notation system handle whole notes, where standard notation has unstemmed symbols? Or even breves (double notes?)

As for your other notation questions: Whole notes are rendered with simply the number with no flags attached. Breves are rare enough in modern guitar that I've never seen them rendered in tab, although in this case, I would tie two whole notes together, myself.

Cheers,

Ian




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