Re: Hiding empty staves

[Manuel]

Hello Werner,


Am 23/12/2006 um 07:46 schrieb Werner LEMBERG:

> > I am a professional musician and an experienced music teacher. I
> > would even be willing to write a first chapter of a User's Guide for
> > the Very Beginner.
>
> Please go on!  Either send patches or, in case you aren't satisfied
> with chapter 2, rewrite it.


Fine! I have now written the following, and am posting it here for  
general criticism.

Manuel





LilyPond's

Beginners Guide

for the

Very Beginner




Chapter One.


Open a new LilyPond window and write this inside:


{ c'  d'  e'  f'  g'  a'  b'  c' ' }


Save the file and then select "Typeset file" from the "Compile" menu.

A small window will open, where you can follow the proceedings, and  
then a ".pdf" document will appear, with this result:


(insert graphic here)


It is a little C-major scale. Let us consider it:

The so-called "curly braces"

{

and

}

are essential. You must always write your music inside such brackets.

Also, LilyPond is "case sensitive", which means that in our litte  
example, "c" (that's lower case) is right, but "C" (that's upper  
case) would be wrong.

Then, LilyPond has certain pre-set values, called "defaults", which  
will apply whenever you do not ask for something different. In our  
present example, for instance: the treble clef, 4/4 time signature,  
fourth notes.

You can, of course, change these and all other defaults, indeed you  
can engrave old plainchat, contemporary notation, orchestral scores,  
do MIDI files, and more. But all that lies further down the road. For  
the moment, we will teach you how to engrave a simple melody.

First, we'll give you a very useful tool to input your notes, called  
the "relative mode".

In our example, we have written each note with an octave  
denomination: one apostrophe:

'

for the so-called "first octave", which is the octave inmediately  
above and including the central c,  and two apostrophes:

''

for the "second octave", the one inmediately above the first octave.

But now, using the "relative mode", you will save yourself a lot of  
work. Erase what you wrote before in the LilyPond window and write  
this instead:


\relative

{ c d e f g a b c }


Save the document again, close the .pdf and select "Typeset file"  
from the "Compile" menu. The result will be the same C-major scale.

(insert graphic here)

But now, with the

\relative

command, the first note is automatically engraved as close as  
possible to the central c and every further note will be engraved as  
close as possible to the previous note. "As close as possible" means  
calculating the smallest interval. Thus if you modify your input to  
this:


\relative

{ e g c b g f d c  }


(Don't forget to always save the file and close the previous .pdf  
before compiling)

You will get this result:


(insert graphic here)


You can analize the excercise and see that a third has been preferred  
to a sixth, a quarter to a fifth, etc. Now in this mode, when you add  
an apostrophe, it makes the note appear one octave higher as it would  
have appeared without the apostrophe. Two apostrophes make for two  
octaves, and so forth.

To make a note one octave lower as it would otherwise appear, add a  
coma:

c,

or two or more for more octaves:

c,,,

See it here:


\relative

{ c' g e' d c c, d c  }

(insert graphic here)



Good. Now let's see how to select the following:


Clefs

Time signatures

Keys major and minor

Rhythmic values

Sharps and flats

Double bars and repeat bars.



These are simple things to do. Write this example:


\relative

{

\clef treble
\key c \major
\time 4/4

 c d e f g a b c }


(insert graphic here)


The result is again our first example of a C-major scale, but this  
time you see the way some defaults are set. Change them easily, like  
this:


\relative

{

\clef alto
\key cis \minor
\time 2/2

 c d e f g a b c }


This should look thus:

(insert graphic here)


Don't worry just yet about the naturals. We'll come to it in a moment.

You change the clef changing the denomination "treble" for


alto

tenor

bass


or other, no less impotant clefs, like:


french (G clef on the first line)

soprano (C clef on the first line)


mezzosoprano (C clef on the second line)

baritone (C clef on the fifth line)

varbaritone (F clef on the third line)

subbass (F clef on the fifth line)

percussion (percussion clef)

tab (tablature clef)



To set the key, proceed in this way:

\key (name of the tonica) \(major or minor)

like for instance:


\key g \minor


And similarly for the time signature, like this:


\time x/y

For instance:

\time 6/8


Now for the rythmic values.

You specify these values with a number after the name of the note:  
"c1" will make a whole note; "d8" an eighth note, etc.

Add full stops for dotted or double doted notes:

g4.

for a dotted fourth note,

a8..

for a double dotted eighth note, and so on.

Insert rests with the letter "r" and specify their duration with  
numbers:

r4.

will be a dotted fourth rest.

But know that once you specify a rythmic value, it will be repeated  
for the following notes until you specify a new value. This applies  
for rests as well. Lets see this with an example:


\relative

{c4 r8 e g4 c r8 g c r c,4 r}

(insert graphic here)

Analyse this and see how the ryhthmic values are automatically repeated.

You can amuse yourself writing all possible and also impossible  
examples of simple melodies, and see what happens. Don't worry,  
whatever you type, you can't break it...

Working fine? Then let's go for sharps and flats. Just name the notes:


cis

dis

eis

fis

gis

ais

bis


for sharps, and


ces

ees

fes

ges

aes

bes


for flats.


(Please note that this is not neccesarily the way you are used to  
name the notes)

"cisis" and "ceses" will give you double alterations. Get it?

BUT whether you choose one of the other key, you must always input  
the exact name of a note, i. e., even if you specifiy a D-Major key  
you still have to write down "fis" to get an F-sharp: if you write  
"f", it will appear with a natural sign. This is not a disadvantage,  
as you will surely notice after a time.

Insert double bars and repeats like this:


\relative

{

\clef treble
\key c \major
\time 2/4

c d

\bar "|:"

e f

\bar ":|:"


g a

\bar ":|"

b c

\bar "||"

}

(insert graphic here)



The exercises you have done so far should enable you to write any  
simple melody. As you are surely aware, we have not said anything yet  
about tuplets, lyrics, polyphony and many other things. If you wonder  
wether you can do this or that with LilyPond, the answer is very  
probably "YES!"

Look for it in the other tutorials or in the next chapters, as soon  
as they are written. Any unsolved questions can be directed to the  
mailing list, including an example of your problem. Take great care  
where you put your { and } around your music, and

have fun!