Re: removing automatically generated natural signs

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 02:22:32PM EST, Ben wrote:
> (
> On 12/8/2017 2:09 PM, Chris Jones wrote:

[..]
>
> (from documentation)
> "...
>
> To determine whether to print an *accidental*, LilyPond examines the pitches
> and the key signature. The key signature only affects the
> */printed/***accidentals, not the note’s pitch!
>
> --> This is a feature that often causes confusion to newcomers, so let us
> explain it in more detail.
>
> LilyPond makes a clear distinction between musical content and layout. The
> alteration (flat, natural sign or sharp) of a note is part of the pitch, and
> is therefore musical content. Whether an accidental (a */printed/***flat,
> natural or sharp sign) is printed in front of the corresponding note*is a
> question of layout*. Layout is something that follows rules, so accidentals
> are printed automatically according to those rules. The pitches in your
> music are works of art, so they will not be added automatically, and you
> must enter what you want to hear."
>
>
> Hope this helps :)

Indeed.

But that is precisely the documentation I have been reading over and
over without being able to quite understand the implications.

And I think that my problem lies with the last word: "... hear".

Since I am not a musician but a mere scribe when I am looking at sheet
music... I do *not* hear anything. ;)

Moot point anyway... because in this particular instance my perspective
is completely different.

I am putting together an epub with images... and some of the images
happen to be the scores of a dozen songs, each one on a separate page.

I initially tried to extract the images from the scanned PDF found
online but no matter how hard I tried fiddling the resolution, boosting
brightness & constrast, smoothing or sharpening... the end result was
barely legible and well... just too ugly for words.

So I figured I would look for something that produces high quality sheet
music output with the intention of creating a dozen .png images that
I could easily add to the epub.

That's how I came across lilypond and after spending the weekend reading
the documentation and experimenting I was able to come up with something
quite satisfactory. (cf. note 1)

But since I am not a musician not by any stretch of the imagination...
and therefore I do not understand whether any changes that creep in
matter or not... I am trying to have my lilypond output reproduce the
original as faithfully as possible.

So now that I have reached the point where song #1 is almost ready there
are still a couple of minor but nonetheless annoying issues that need to
be addressed before I can move on to the remaining eleven.

And one of them is getting rid of these naturals that are not in the
original.

I do realize that it is quite possible that the original typesetting of
the song is at best sloppy in this respect and that lilypond is right
amending it.

But that's not for me to decide.

Obviously rather than tampering with lilypond's output after the fact
I would much rather find a way to force the software to reproduce
the original score down to every detail.

Anyway, sorry for the lenghty explanation but since this mailing list
appears to be mostly a haunt for the the music-savvy... I thought
I might make it clear that I am not trying to emulate Ludwig Van or
Johannes B. but rather the anonymous grease monkey in the printer's
shop.

Thanks,

CJ

1. The rendering of my first .png on a 7" ~300 dpi android tablet is
   absolutely gorgeous... looks as good as high quality sheet music you
   could buy from the store.