Re: Problem with bar numbers

[David Wright]

On Tue 14 Mar 2017 at 19:11:31 (+1100), Don Gingrich wrote:
> OK, I'll start by saying that I'm doing some things that
> are wrong as far as musical purists are concerned,
> but there *is* a reason.
> 
> I'm typesetting scores for folk dance music sets.
> Typically, (but not exclusively) music for folk dance
> consists of an 8 bar 'A' part and an 8 bar 'B' part.
> 
> It is often written with an anacrusis at the start of
> both the A and B parts. And the A part ends with
> a bar with the value of time - (A anacrusis)
> The B part may also start with its own anacrusis.
> The two anacrusii will almost always have the same 
> duration and the final bar will be similar in duration
> to the A part ending. 
> 
> The reason that it gets written this way is that
> dances require varying numbers of bars of music.
> But always a multiple of the A/B part which is
> commonly 8 bars. To make things easier for the 
> dancers, the tune may be played with different 
> numbers of repetitions of the A and B parts.
> A good band will endeavour to finish a dance section
> at the end of the B part so that the new couple 
> always begin on the first time through the A part 
> of either the current tune or a new one.
> 
> This also explains the AABBx2 markup
> 
> So it breaks the rules of music theory, but there is
> a reason.

Not for me, it doesn't. But your tune does seem to have lost its first
note. People who know the dance will fall over after the first chord,
ie the zeroth, introductory chord.

At the end of your tunes, the fourth beat will be felt by the dancers,
either because the next tune will fill in the gap or, at the very end
of the dance, the silence before the final chord (bow and curtsey).
When there's a key change, you may need a modulating chord in the gap.

> I've translated XML files and they generally end up
> with sN*M to fill out the anacrusis and terminal
> bars. It works but it's ugly since it adds horizontal
> space  that is unwanted. So I've been using
> \partial and copping the warnings since it looks 
> better. (It's just the "programmer" in me that doesn't
> like code that "compiles" with warnings.)
> 
> What would be nice is either an allowed alternative
> partial or a variant of the s code that says 
> "ignore this many beats" .
> 
> The other problem is that the bar numbers get 
> screwed up with these anacrusii that aren't supposed
> to be there.

If you just set those tunes, you can just stick the volta
brackets round the tune with its anacrusis attached, but
as you intend to add chords, I've left the alternatives
in so that you can write any necessary chords that differ.

> If it were up to me, I'd re-number at the start of each tune,
> but I'm working to someone else's preferred appearance
> which he achieves with Finale. I'm getting close but 
> the bar numbers are defeating me. I tried getting 
> a number on every bar. and thought that I had the 
> correct command in:
> 
>  \set Score.barNumberVisibility = #(every-nth-bar-number-visible 1)
> 
> But I still only get numbers at the left side of the staff.

I've numbered all the bars but haven't attempted any double numbering;
something for the future. Yes, it's very strange to number different
tunes from other than bar 1.

> I thought about a bunch of big rests, but then there wouldn't
> have been as many bars. Sorry it's such a big example. It's
> actually 6 tunes across 2 pages with a D.S al Fine at the
> finish of the sixth one.

I must admit I don't understand the tune/AABB selection for Waves of
Tory. With only 32 bars, you've got nothing left for the actual waves
of the title; AABBAB would work (or longer tunes...)

Cheers,
David.

my-waves.ly
Description: Text document

my-waves.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document