Re: Better MIDI

[Hans Aberg]

On 3 Jun 2009, at 00:16, Peter Chubb wrote:

> Hans> (Isn't there a timing problem at the second triplet?)
>
> There is --- it's to do the gruppetto at the end of the trill, that
> seems to interfere with the first note of the triplet in the MIDI
> output.  It's not something I can fix with articulate.

OK.

> Hans> If it is possible to do it, it might be great to be able to do
> Hans> the timing on per note and note-group basis - for interpretation
> Hans> and also generating feedback on what values to choose.
>
> Not sure what you mean here --- can you elaborate?

One guy on rec.music.theory, in his composition (another program),  
started to notate strangely even with unusual time signature, in order  
to get it sound better in the MIDI. So one should be able such things  
without having to change the typeset output - much of the finer  
details of music interpretation aren't notated, but are still very  
important for the sound.

> Hans> Also, the typesetting program has a cool feature where notes
> Hans> written with equal time can be swinged. - Some guys on the
> Hans> Usenet newsgroup rec.music.theory found this feature great for
> Hans> experimenting with.
>
> actually, LilyPond can't do this yet.  I wish it could.

I see you have cc the developer list. Basically what is needed is to  
have to timings - for typesetting and sound output. The latter should  
follow the former by default, but should be tweaked as necessary.

> > > ...I'd also like to do something about trills and turns with
> > > alterations, and do a better calculation for trill duration.
>
> Hans> One problem with those is that in LilyPond code one does not
> Hans> write them in the diatonic note system, as the other notes, but
> Hans> only graphically.
>
> Indeed.  The same is true for most of the other marks that
> `articulate' deals with.  Unfortunately there are no standard ways of
> marking that there's a `flat' symbol above the ornament symbol and a
> `natural' below; there are several ways depending on context.

In the input, it suffices the notation is transposable: either the  
note name or the interval. Normally, the ornaments should change scale  
degrees. So a chromatic trill on C should normally be on Db, and not  
on C# - this is of importance in other tuning systems than E12 (12  
equal temperament).

Also this has to do with the innards of LilyPond. But it may be hard  
to fix trills without it.

  Hans