spacing

[David Raleigh Arnold]

> > The dots are wrong in measures 4 and 10 and \dotDown
> > and \dotsDown give parse errors.  What now?
>
> It appears there is no predefined macro to set the
> dot direction. You could d
> efine it yourself:
>
> \dotDown= \property Voice.Dots \override #'direction = #-1

Great!  And I have done so. Thank you.  Fyi lurkers,
no backslash:

dotDown = \property Voice.Dots \override #'direction = #-1

> The full list of predefined macros can be found in ly/property.ly

So I could \include a file of my own with alternatives to \voiceOne, etc., that
defined
\dotDown and put it with \stemDown where it belongs?
(which is not a bug but is certainly a serious oversight.)
>
> > Poet is the wrong typeface.  How to fix?
>
> I wouldn't call it a bug but a typesetting decision.
> You could set it yourself by embedding LaTeX commands
> in the string:
> poet = "\\textsc{D.R. Arnold}"

Excellent.  I have never seen different typefaces in the poet
and composer columns ever.  It is a very weird decision
indeed to have them different.  ;-)
>
> > How do I get page numbers of the style 1/1, 2/1, etc.,
> > and how do I get rid of the page number when there is
> > only a single page?
>
> To get rid of the page numbers, call ly2dvi with
> ly2dvi -s pagenumber=no

Thanks.  I'll do it that way.  I don't want rid of all page
numbers, only where there is only one page.

> > What happened to the copyright notice?
>
> It's placed on the first page. However, the Lilypond tagline
> is placed on the last page and on single page scores the latter
> will unfortunately override the former. If you set not only
> copyright but also tagline, you'll be on the s
> afe side.

I was indeed hoping such was the case.  Thanks.
>
> > I'd like to try a transparent note in a fourth part to move
> > other notes to the right so that I can place a rest
> > for a center part before the bass and top notes. That seems
> > to be the only outright impossible situation now, as in measure
> > 10.  If there is no transparent note, is there some other way
> > of doing measure 10?

I> I don't really see what you try to achieve.
>
Surely you can see that measure 10 is not typeset in an acceptable
way?  If I move the rest downward between the gis and the e, where the rest
*must* be, it will collide with the notes.  The notes cannot 
be moved because a rest does not participate in horizontal
collision code.  Hence, without a transparent note in collision on that
beat,  you can type \shiftOnnn all you want and nothing will happen, and there
is no way to typeset that measure properly that
I can see.  Can the gis and the e be
forced to the right by some other means?  \force-hshift didn't work.

> > How is a transparent note entered?
>
> Doesn't s4 work?

No.  It never has.  Using s4 s4 s4 instead of s2. has no effect.  That
is a solved problem anyway, because transparent rests work.  That
was to deal with bad horizontal spacing of columns.  Measure 10
has wrong vertical placement of the rest and no way of collision
avoidance when it is moved to the correct place.

More rests do not help in measure 10 because the horizontal collision code
doesn't see them anyway.  Transparent notes are required
to get both the gis and the e off their columns. 
>
> > Can a rest be a notehead and the stem be made transparent?
> > That would give more precision and more probability of working
> > with future versions. Moving rests from places where they don't
> > belong anyway just doesn't do it for me.  If there is more than
> > one rest you also have to find which rest to move by trial and
> > error.
>
> In other words: "Could I place any symbol by specifying its
> "pitch" and duration?" At the moment, I'm afraid that would
> require some Scheme hacking that would certainly not be
> guaranteed to be future proof.

ok.  Back to the transparent note then?  Is there a way?  Or
can I just move the notes horizontally some other way?
>
> > --------------------------------------
> >
> > It would be better to do \key D and \key d or IOW \key RE and
> > \key re because it would
> > save keystrokes.  There are only two modes in
>
>  the system
>
> > of keys, major and minor.  Other modes cannot properly be
> > said to be in keys.  So:
> >
> > \tonality g \mode mixolydian would be correct, but
> > \key g \mixolydian is just plain wrong--and its meaning
> > is not clear at all. It is hard enough
> > to explain to beginning students that key is two things, tonality
> > and mode, without that.  :-)
>
> You say yourself that a key is two things, tonality and mode.
> Doesn't it make sence, then, to have a command \key with two
> parameters, the tonality and the mode?

By definition the modes of a key are limited to major
and minor.  If you want to support other modes, it should be
\tonality, not  \key, for those modes.  G minor is a key.
G dorian is not., and it would not be wrong to speak of something
referred to as G dorian as being in the key of ees major
or c minor, because often people refer to a key signature as
a key, and there is really nothing much wrong with that.  So no, it does not
make sense to have a separate
command for the mode of a key because a key has only two modes.

(Any of the six modes can be represented by maj+1#, maj, maj-1#,
min+1b, min, and min-1b.  No other pair of modes can make that
statement.  (the Locrian mode is bogus.)  This accounts for the quick
disappearance of the old modal system once chromatic signs were 
invented, and for the survival of major and minor only.)

So the best thing would be \tonality and \mode, and then
keymaj = \mode \major \tonality a 
or
keymin = \mode \minor \tonality fis

Then you could use ChurchDorian, GreekPhrygian, ModeTwo,
ChurchAeolianPlagal, and all the rest., and those of us who
have no interest whatever in writing in a 600 year old style
would not have to mess with it or be impressed with the fact
that the writers of lilypond don't know what a key is..  ;-)

It is frustrating to have to struggle so much to typeset a simple piece in three
parts, with a program which ought to be fairly mature.

I'm glad you got the attachment.  As I said, I got garbage.  I am
using a webmail program running on the hurd and I am not
accustomed to it.  Sorry about the flood.  I will stop
using attachments.

Did anyone ever put a z style quarter rest in the fonts?  I
have a new appreciation for their lack of height.  :-)
------------------------------------------------------------
Information is not knowledge.           Belief is not truth.
Indoctrination is not teaching.   Tradition is not evidence.
         David Raleigh Arnold   address@hidden