Re: Ottava

[Noeck]

Hi,

thanks for looking this up! This is what I am most used to, too.

I would like to see it in LilyPond. Could that be added to the issues as
a wish or enhancement (it is even a bit ugly).

Cheers,
Joram


>> What does E. Gould say ...
>
> Page 28:
>> The octave sign is written in italic, the numeral '8' is 1 1/2
>> stave-paces high.  The optional 'va' is placed flush with the top of
>> _ottava sopra_ (_8^va_), flush with the base of _ottava bassa_ (_8va_).
>>
>> Indicate the extent of the transposition with a line of dashes
>> (hereafter called a dotted line).  The line extends from the top edge
>> of the _8_ for _8 sopra_ and the base of the _8_ for _8 bassa_, and
>> runs parallel to the stave.
>
> And those 8s look bold to me.
>
> Brian Barker

Here is my incomplete suggestion with some comments:

Text positioning:
- \super does not look good, therefore \raise
- the raise value of 0.7 depends on the font, is there a way to align
  the top boundaries of the 8 and the va?
- optically the vertical position of va looks different for 8 and 15
- for the vb, base line alignment is no problem
- should we add text for a third octave to LP? ±3 (i.e. 22va and 22vb)
  or a general text calculated from the octavation:
  |octavation|*7 + 1 and va if octavation > 0, vb if octavation < 0

Lines
- The lines are unchanged but they should go to the top line or base
  line respectively.


\version "2.18.0"

ottavaa = {
  \ottava 1
  \set Staff.ottavation = \markup \bold \concat {"8" \tiny \raise #0.7
"va" }
}

ottavab = {
  \ottava -1
  \set Staff.ottavation = \markup \bold \concat{ "8" \tiny "vb" }
}

ottavac = {
  \ottava 2
  \set Staff.ottavation = \markup \bold \concat{ "15" \tiny \raise #0.7
"ma" }
}

ottavad = {
  \ottava -2
  \set Staff.ottavation = \markup \bold \concat{ "15" \tiny "mb" }
}


<<
  \new Staff \relative c''' {
    \ottava #1 a a
    \ottava #-1 a,, a
    \ottava #2 a''' a
    \ottava #-2 a,,,, a
  }
  \new Staff \relative c''' {
    \ottavaa a a
    \ottavab a,, a
    \ottavac a''' a
    \ottavad a,,,, a
  }
>>

another (different) feature request
- currently the user has to override this text *after* the \ottava
  command. This prevents from having a general tweak in a stylesheet.
  Could the user override some property and provide one of those:
    * one markup for all (if he uses only \ottava #1)
    * scheme list of markups from -3 to 3 (like [22,15,8,loco,8,15,22])
    * a scheme function that returns the markup corresponding to the
      octavation