Re: Trying to get the hang of "Polyphony with Shared Lyrics" section of the manual.

[Kevin Cole]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 3:51 PM Lukas-Fabian Moser <lfm@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Kevin,
>
> Am 29.10.21 um 21:03 schrieb Kevin Cole:
> > First, I'm using LilyPond v. 2.20.0. (I often seem to end up at 2.18
> > and 2.21 when searching for documentation -- though explicitly
> > changing the URL to 2.20 works.)
> Yes, that's a bit of a nuisance.
> > Second, I guess I'm not sure what you mean by a compatible example: I
> > thought that's what I provided. But the URL below is what I'm trying
> > to convert, if that's what you mean.
>
> Not "compatible": compilable. Something that I can paste into
> Frescobaldi (or whatever editor I use) and can immediately start working
> with.
>
> If I let LilyPond compile the source you provided with your first
> message, I get a bunch of error messages and no visible score.
>
> But fortunately, the source at
> https://codeberg.org/ubuntourist/celtic_song_book/src/branch/main/source/irish/let_erin_remember_days_old.ly
> is something we can work with. :-)
>
> Looking at the scanned book you provided, it seems we get away with two
> voices: One that the lyrics should be aligned to, and another one
> indicating the subdivisions (probably for later stanzas).
>
> After I started playing a bit with your source, I ended up simplifying
> multiple things at once:
>
> \version "2.20.0"
> \language "english"
>
> \layout {
>    \autoBeamOff
> }
>
> global = {
>    \key ef \major
>    \time 4/4
>    \mergeDifferentlyDottedOn
>    \mergeDifferentlyHeadedOn
> }
>
> melody = \new Voice = melody \relative {
>    \partial 4
>    bf4^\f
>    ef4 ef8. f16 g4 g8. af16
>    \voices melody,2
>    <<
>      { \voiceOne bf4. bf8 \oneVoice } \\
>      { bf8 bf8 bf4 }
>    >>
>    \oneVoice
>    af4 g8 af8
>
>    \break
>    bf4 c4 g4 ef4
> }
>
> words = \lyricmode {
>    Let
>    E -- rin re -- mem -- ber the
>    days of old, Ere her
>    faith -- less sons be
> }
>
> \score {
>    <<
>      \new Staff \with { midiInstrument = violin } { \global \melody }
>      \new Lyrics \lyricsto melody { \words }
>    >>
> }
>
> I'll probably forget something, but here's some of what I did:
>
> - I replaced \addlyrics by \new Lyrics \lyricsto melody (where "melody"
> is not your variable \melody, but the name melody from \new Voice = melody).
> - I made sure that the bf4. on "days" stays in the voice called melody.
> There are various ways to do this; I chose a "modern" way using \voices
> and \\ inside << >> which allows to automatically add a "second" voice
> - I switched voices at "days of old" corresponding to your original book
> - I moved the \global stuff outside the melody
> - I removed all instances of \noBeam and instead did \autoBeamOff (which
> is often more useful in vocal music, especially with lots of syllabic bits)
>
> Does that help?

Yes, thanks!

I had already thought about moving the

   \mergeDifferentlyDottedOn
   \mergeDifferentlyHeadedOn

to the global block, but the rest of it I'll meditate on.

I'll probably keep the \noBeam rather than the \autoBeamOff, since I'm
trying to faithfully reproduce the original, as much as I can. I will
leave it to others with more musical knowledge to spin off from that
as much as they like.  (There's a lot of language in the section
introductions that I personally think are horribly written, but until
I go out and collect a bunch of songs and write a book myself, I don't
feel that I should be changing the original author's words -- except
in cases of very obvious typographical errors. I'm merely transcribing
-- though I voice my opinion in the preface to the online edition.)