Re: chord durations

[Tim McNamara]

On Sep 2, 2009, at 7:56 PM, Patrick Horgan wrote:

> Tim McNamara wrote:
> > I am a guitarist.
> >
> > If all he wants is a chord chart, some paper and a pencil would be  
> > a better approach.  Or even a word processor two write out the  
> > chords like Ralph Patt did with the Vanilla Book.
> >
> > http://www.ralphpatt.com/VBook.html
> >
> > Christian's trying to do something LilyPond is not designed to do  
> > when what he really needs is a lead sheet, if he wants to use  
> > LilyPond without a lot of kerfuffling around.  I've sent him  
> > information about this back-channel.
> I agree it would be silly to use lilypond just to generate  
> something like:
>
>
> || C7/ / / | C / / / | C / / / | C / / / |
> | F / / / | F / / / | C / / / | C / / / |
> | G7 / / / | F / / / C / / / | C / / / ||
>
> But what if it was only one of the outputs from the music, which  
> also generated tab and sheet music, and midi?  While you're already  
> using the data to generate the other useful forms, what you be  
> wrong with using it to generate charts, which are a very commonly  
> used thing in the jazz world?

If there is a way to create a standard score for a jazz/rock/pop tune  
and from that to generate different outputs (lead sheet, tab, chord  
chart with lyrics, etc.), that's fine.  I don't know any way to do  
the last one.  I don't use tab- sheet music is easier to read by far-  
so I've never done anything with that in LilyPond, although I know  
the facility is there.

I play jazz/blues/some rock on guitar and use LilyPond to create lead  
sheets (a.k.a. "charts").  I've never turned up to a jazz session or  
a gig and been presented with just a chord chart.  I am always given  
a lead sheet with the melody on the staff and the chords above (or  
sometimes written over the bass staff instead which is hard to read,  
usually in vocal books) and often with lyrics below the staff.  The  
only place I have seen jazz chord charts as such is on Ralph Patt's  
Web site.  Those are intended for reference to correct the Real Books  
(which frequently have erroneous changes) and not to be played from.

My point was that LilyPond expects there to be notes on a staff in  
the input.  If you don't put them in, then you're going to have  
trouble getting LilyPond to do much of anything.  It is a *music  
engraving* application and by definition that is staves with notes  
(at least in Western music).  From Christian's questions and  
comments, it seemed to me that he did not understand the intended use  
of LilyPond and is trying to get it to do something that (1) it is  
not designed to do and (2) could be much more easily done with pencil  
and paper or a word processor.  I certainly could be misunderstanding  
his intent.