Re: Change stem direction for voice?

[Stefano Antonelli]

On Sun, 2024-08-25 at 20:44 -0400, William Rehwinkel wrote:
> Replying back to you and re-adding the list to this.

Not sure what happened there.  In Evolution email, it doesn't handle
pgp email very well.  For completeness, I'll resend the previous email
so please ignore it.

> I see. Quick note about your example: in your attached file on line
> 98 
> if you replace
> 
> \layout {
>      \context {
>        \Voice
>        \override Beam.positions = #'(5 . 5)
>      }
> 
> with
> 
> \layout {
>      \context {
>        \Score
>        \stemUp
>        \override Beam.positions = #'(5 . 5)
>      }
> 
> I think the stems and beams will work as you were hoping.

It might, but having all stems up is only one way to represent the
music.  I don't necessarily want all stems up all the time.  Thank you
for pointing it out though.

> As for a template to write drum rhythms in multiple ways, I don't
> know if that has been done yet. You would have to ask someone else
> who has more experience writing drum parts. Maybe someone has written
> a .ily file which has functions to handle that kind of thing, or you
> could write it someday. But it would be very difficult, because you
> have to combine voices with different rhythms on the same stem. But
> anything is possible with lilypond when we are able to use scheme,
> it's just a question of how difficult it is.

As far as I know there isn't such a thing.  I don't know enough scheme
to write it myself, nor what it should look like.  At the moment I have
to commit to which stems are up and which are down and embed that in
the notes.  I'd like to get rid of that.

> As an aside, I think that it is not a good idea to write the notes in
> different voices and have the beams collide. One reason is that if
> you change the rhythm of one voice, such as making the snare be
> dotted eighth, sixteenth, the notation will be incorrect (see
> attached image).

Drum set notation is a bit weird.  In an all stems up representation,
the hihats are marking the timing.  The snare doesn't need to be dotted
(it has no duration) so it just need to placed at the right time with
whatever note value that works.  At least that's what I'm used to
seeing.

There's also very few rests in drum set notation.  And depending on how
the it's notated (all stems up, or hands and feet) there may not be
enough information about where the notes fall and a rest may be needed.
 That's something I hadn't considered.  Throws a bit of a wrench into
the plan.

The other way to write it for hands and feet sucks as far as I'm
concerned.

<<
  { cymc8 hh8 <hh sn>8 hh8 hh8 hh8 <hh sn>8 hh8 }
\\
  { <hhp bd>8 hhp8 hhp8 hhp8 bd4 s4 }
>>

Or even worse, all stems up:

<cymc bd>8 hh8 <hh sn>8 hh8 <hh bd>8 hh8 <hh sn>8 hh8

The nicest way to represent the drum set would be to have a separate
voice for each piece of the kit.  That way there's no need to group any
notes together.  And those parts can be reused easier if they don't
contain other kit pieces.

There aren't too many people using lilypond for drum set notation.
 It's awkward.  The only reason I keep trying to use lilypond is
because I hope to one day make ly2video make videos a certain way.