left pointing note heads

[johan buelens]

hi,

allow me to introduce myself: i’m a newbie to the third power, namely to this list, to lilypond, and to taiko drumming.

(so bear with me … )

the japanese art of drumming has always been an oral tradition, nothing was ever written down — not the techniques, nor the music.  but westerners tend to favor written music, so many taiko teachers outside of japan invented their own notation.

my teachers’s notation, however, looks to me rather like a rube goldberg solution looking for a problem …

so i turned to lilypond and at first glance, the tambourine notation looked the part.  however, kumi-daiko is highly stylised, and it is very important to strike the drum with the left or right hand at certain times.  the notation i found in other persussion styles consists in adding the letters "R" or "L" above each note, but this gets confusing in fast passages.  (and it is not very universal, as french speaking people for instance would certainly only understand "D" or "G" …)

i looked at different notations, for instance adding ">" or "<" above the notes to depict the right or left hand, but this also gets busy, and conflicts with other uses of these signs.

so i thought about pointing the heads of the notes to the left or the right, which seems quite intuitive.  (remember that this notation is intended to be used by many people who have never seen, let understood, a music score.  so the simpler, the better.)

if the note heads or the note stems should remain aligned over the staves, i don’t know yet, although i’m inclined to the latter method.

i looked at the feta font, but found no left pointing note heads.

i tried stencils, but didn’t succeed (remember i’m an absolute beginner). 

any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

(and if i didn’t express myself clearly enough, i’ll post some photoshoped examples to illustrate my point.)

best regards,

johan buelens

duizendbladlaan 24

3090 overijse

http://www.johanbuelens.net
+32 (0)475 785 426