figured bass

[Russ Ross]

Thanks again for the lyrics help over the last few days.

Now I'm struggling with a few figured bass questions:

1. Is there a way to notate a number with a line through it?  I
couldn't find any way to do this in the docs.  This is a pretty
standard part of figured bass notation so I'm crossing my fingers
and hoping there's an easy way to do it.

2. Can I do something like a melisma in figured bass?  When I enter
"__" I get the error "error: parse error, unexpected FIGURE_SPACE:",
and when I enter "--" I get the warning: "warning: Junking event:
`ArticulationEvent':" and nothing happens.  I'm not sure if there's
a way to insert objects from different classes that are still
aware of the objects being created by the figured bass.

3. Figured bass notations are lining up flush at the bottom and I'd
rather have them flush at the top.  I can force this on a
case-by-case basis by entering <_ _ 7> instead of <7> and making
everything 3 numbers high, but this gets to be a pain really fast.
The docs for the BassFigure grob has a self-alightment-interface
with a self-alignment-Y property that seems promising, but I don't
understand the lilypond structure well enough yet to know how to get
to that property.  I tried a few things but with no success.

4. Finally, a question about the notation itself if anyone knows
much about figured bass.  I've encountered it before in music theory
classes, but only on a limited basis.  The piece I'm setting has a
couple things that confuse me.  One looks something like this:

x x  x x
5    ---
4    3

If you use your imagination, the x's are notes.  The first has a
<4 5> under it and the second has a 3 written out with a long dash
above it.  It appears that it is shorthand for a 5 in this place but
I'm only guessing.  A measure later I see:

x x  x x  x x
6    ---- 7
5    4    4!
-    ---- 2

here the - by itself is a flat and the 4! is a 4 with a natural
sign.  Again, it appears that the 6 and the flat (which is short for
3- if I remember right) are continued with only the 5 changing to a
4.  Anyone know if this is right?  Is there more to it?  Bonus
points if you can notate it in Lilypond, but just knowing what it
means so I can notate it without the shorthand will be helpful.  I'm
worried that it has a special meaning to the performer and I don't
want to lose that.

Thanks for any help!  I'm gradually getting the hang of things.

- Russ