Re: New user + notation queries

[Mats Bengtsson]

Joseph Wakeling wrote:

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> Hello all,
>
> A novice user here, although delighted with what I've discovered so far
> in Lilypond.  Half as a joke, when first fiddling around I decided to
> ask for a 7/10 time signature, and found it not just accepted but
> correctly interpreted!  So, much fun.
>
> Anyway, I've encountered a number of issues I'm hoping people can help
> with.  Please forgive me if it's "simple" stuff I should have worked out
> from the documentation.
>
> Attached is part of a piece I'm trying to notate in Lilypond.  These are
> the problems (there are others in another piece I'm trying to notate,
> but I'll discuss that in a separate email):
>
>
> (1) I've decided I want flat beams in this piece---it just seems to look
> better, and give a better feel of the rhythmic structure.  As you can
> see I've put in the line
>
> \override Beam #'slope-limit = #0
>
> which I found in the mailing list archives, but this generates the
> following error:
>
> warning: can't find property type-check for `slope-limit'
> (backend-type?).  perhaps a typing error?
>
> So, what's wrong?
>  

That you looked at an old email and the LilyPond is still developing
quickly. To find a list of relevant properties to tweak, go to the section
on Automatic Beams in the on-line manual and click on the link at the
bottom to the Program Reference for Beam. Without having tried, I
would go for the damping property.

> (2) In the second bar, you can see that there are sometimes rests in one
> voice while the other voice is playing.  What I want is, first, that the
> rests be invisible, but second, that there be short stems where the
> "notes" (or rests) would be.  I tried using s (as in "skip") but did not
> get any beams or stems.
>  
That was an uncommon request! The best way I can think of to get the 
stems but
no note heads is to use ordinary notes but make the note heads invisible:
\override NoteHead #'transparent = ##t

> I note too that even as they are the rests appear to be oddly placed,
> that is, in the "normal" position on the staff rather than offset up or
> down according to whether they are in voice one or two.  Is there a way
> of dealing with this (for future reference where I may *want* rests in
> the different voices)?
>  
I'm not sure about the exact details on how LilyPond moves around rests to
avoid collisions, but you can always use the \rest feature to manually 
specify
the rest position.

> (3) Is it possible to get alternative quarter-tone symbols?  In
> particular I don't like the 3/4-flat sign; I'd much rather have the
> combined backwards-flat plus ordinary flat "db" sign.  In other pieces I
> might want to use accidentals-with-arrows as sometimes that seems to be
> a preferable option.
>  
You could try something like:

\once \override Accidental #'stencil = #ly:text-interface::print
\once \override Accidental #'text = \markup{ \override #'(word-space . 
0.4) \line {\semiflat \flat }}


  /Mats