Jazz notation

[Carl Youngblood]

The subject of what it would take to get lilypond to do jazz notation 
was brought up a while back (in Sep. 2003, I believe).  I think this is 
an important discussion that shouldn't be treated so lightly.  I have 
hardly seen a single jazz chart that isn't done in this style, and both 
Finale and Igor engraver (and probably other packages) support it.  
Check out these links for an idea of what it looks like if you are not 
familiar with it:

http://www.shermusic.com/bin/brasilified.gif
http://www.noteheads.com/igor/screenshots/shots.html (The screenshot 
under Guitar Tablature)

This is THE style to use if you are writing jazz charts.  It's just the 
thing to do.  I think that if major aspects of lilypond would need to be 
changed to support this style, then perhaps such a thing needs to be 
considered, in order for lilypond to be flexible enough to support a 
wide variety of notation standards.  These settings should be modifiable 
with simple (or complex, as the case may require) text commands rather 
than being hard-wired into the code. This would have the added advantage 
of allowing lilypond to support more choices in notation style than just 
the modern ones we're used to.

The comment was made "If you want to have a handwritten style, why not 
write it by hand?"  This is, of course, disingenuous.  There are many 
advantages in having a reproduceable machine copy of your notation that 
can be modified and re-rendered at will.  There is nothing inherently 
worse about the jazz notation style.  It merits just as high regard as 
the great work that has been done so far in lilypond.  It's just different.

Regards,
Carl Youngblood

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