Re: Note range of a score

[Aaron Hill]

On 2020-10-07 5:37 pm, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> I just need the highest and lowest note, text, is all.

From within LilyPond, something like this might work:

%%%%
\version "2.20.0"

displayPitchRange =
#(define-music-function
  (music)
  (ly:music?)
  (let ((pitches (music-pitches music)))
    (set! pitches (sort pitches ly:pitch<?))
    (format #t "\nPitches from ~s to ~s"
      (first pitches) (last pitches)))
  music)

\displayPitchRange
\transpose c cis {
  b'4 <a' c''> g'2
}
%%%%

The intention is to use \displayPitchRange similar to \displayMusic.


> The rationale behind this is that I have set a New Complexity score
> for a newly developed Clarinet D'Amore, which has a wider range than
> clarinet, and few, if any sampled clarinet VST instruments go beyond a
> textbook clarinet range, which is not enough, and I need to work out
> how to deal with that. Everything is always non-standard over here at
> my desk!

Oh, is that anything like the oboe d'amore?

There's not much that can be done if your VST instrument is fixed in its 
logic.  It is my opinion that enforcing the range on virtual instruments 
is a bad idea.  Nothing stops someone from retuning or otherwise 
modifying a real world instrument to extend its natural range.  And 
software should not care in the slightest.  Just play a sample at 
whatever rate the user is telling you.

(I suppose the virtual instrument designers are trying to "help" folks 
understand the normal range of instruments so they do not accidentally 
orchestrate something that would be unplayable.)

Assuming you do not have access to the new instrument to sample it, you 
will have to seek out a good existing SoundFont/SFZ and then modify the 
pitch range of the extremal samples to extend them as far as you need.


-- Aaron Hill