Re: Add option to indicate frets by letters in tablature (issue164063)

[Carl Sorensen]

On 12/7/09 9:30 AM, "address@hidden" <address@hidden>
wrote:

> 
> 
>> Dana suggests "course", which I guess speaks well to lute players.  But
>> not
>> to guitar players.
> 
> 12 course guitar anyone?

In my experience we call it a 12-string guitar (but as you correctly point
out, there are only 6-courses in a 12-string guitar).

> 
> maybe ts a classical guitar hing, but I also remember tutorials discussing
> 6-course instruments.
> 

There are some pages on the web that discuss 5- and 6-course guitars, with
either single courses (1 string per course) or double courses (2 strings per
course).

This is not part of the experience in "popular" guitar playing as far as I
can see.

But it is apparent that we really do finger courses, rather than strings.

> 
>> I had envisioned that a full set of fretLetters would be given
> 
> At least that, saving keystrokes is not a good idea here.  Wht is really
> needed is a way to specify degenerated ligatures; as I have said, for
> german tab the ligatures used by 16c printers (and later) included
> overstrikes using both curved and straight line segments placed below,
> thru, and above the main glyph, each positioned differently from others.
> I began a font for these, but got sidetracked and havent gone back to it.

These overstrikes can be accomplished with markups, which is part of the
reason I want to have markups available in fretLabels.

> 
>> Perhaps we just ought to define lists called fretLabels (instead of
>> fretLetters).  And we could then define lists of any kind of glyphs to be
>> used.
> 
> Flags, mensural symbols (O2, O3, O/...), bars (| || |:|  :|:  :|  |: |||,
> this last is a common ornamental flourish used for the final bar, the
> second vertical stroke is repeated several times all connected, the height
> of it degenerates into, well, a flourish).  In some renaissance editions
> it is clearly a cast type sort, others use various woodcuts chosen to fill
> available space; perhaps the user will be inconcistant in how it is used,
> epsf-cum-woodcut or font character.
> 
> While I use separate dots flags and stems when devising a font, they are
> pre-compounded and are encoded as one non-combining symbol to the font
> user.  However, other font makers may solve that issue differently,
> leaving it up to the user to form ligatures from parts like tails, dots,
> stems.  Tabulature flags with dots are usually shown above the staff
> (Petrucci's editions are an exception), so there is no issue of the dot
> intersecting a line, as is seen in notes on a mensural staff; mensural
> notation requires a different placement of the dot of augmentation
> relative to its note when the note is on a line as opposed to when it is
> in a space, which is a reason to have them be combining symbols in a
> mensural font.

Font design is clearly outside the scope of the current effort, although it
has been proposed as a future phase.

> 
>> There could be specific lists for each different style of tablature,
>> that would be very easy to switch to.
> 
> If ly needs musical semantics to associate with the symbols then there
> will be an issue to consider as well, the display symbol lists will need
> coordination with similar lists for the semantic(s).

Unquestionably we want LilyPond to have correct semantics, and produce
output corresponding to those semantics.  I think that's at the core of
Trevor's implementation.
 

> 
> Historical usage varied as to the symbols employed and how they map to
> duration.  The usual set of 5 flags were simply up-stemmed notes (usually,
> but not always headless) with tails to the right - semibreve, minim,
> semiminim, fusa, semifusa.  Some printers also had a breve - a left-going
> tail, or a tailless stem with a circle on it.

Again, a list that matches a duration to a symbol (and whose symbols can be
specified by the user) will allow the matching between semantics and
display.

> 
> Many polyphonic editions show (by comparing parallel score parts with the
> tab) that those flags were read in proportion (ie, the written semibreve
> was read as breve); this to avoid needing  5-flagged stems that would
> challenge the punchcutter, the player, compositor, and proofreader with
> weak eyes, and the ink that spreads.
> 

Thanks,

Carl