Re: removing automatically generated natural signs

[David Wright]

On Fri 08 Dec 2017 at 16:21:41 (-0500), Chris Jones wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 02:22:32PM EST, Ben wrote:
> > (
> > On 12/8/2017 2:09 PM, Chris Jones wrote:
> 
> [..]
> >
> > (from documentation)
> > "...
> > 
> > To determine whether to print an *accidental*, LilyPond examines the pitches
> > and the key signature. The key signature only affects the
> > */printed/***accidentals, not the note’s pitch!
> > 
> > --> This is a feature that often causes confusion to newcomers, so let us
> > explain it in more detail.
> > 
> > LilyPond makes a clear distinction between musical content and layout. The
> > alteration (flat, natural sign or sharp) of a note is part of the pitch, and
> > is therefore musical content. Whether an accidental (a */printed/***flat,
> > natural or sharp sign) is printed in front of the corresponding note*is a
> > question of layout*. Layout is something that follows rules, so accidentals
> > are printed automatically according to those rules. The pitches in your
> > music are works of art, so they will not be added automatically, and you
> > must enter what you want to hear."
> > 
> > 
> > Hope this helps :)
> 
> Indeed. 
> 
> But that is precisely the documentation I have been reading over and
> over without being able to quite understand the implications. 
> 
> And I think that my problem lies with the last word: "... hear". 
> 
> Since I am not a musician but a mere scribe when I am looking at sheet
> music... I do *not* hear anything. ;)
> 
> Moot point anyway... because in this particular instance my perspective
> is completely different.
> 
> I am putting together an epub with images... and some of the images
> happen to be the scores of a dozen songs, each one on a separate page. 
> 
> I initially tried to extract the images from the scanned PDF found
> online but no matter how hard I tried fiddling the resolution, boosting
> brightness & constrast, smoothing or sharpening... the end result was
> barely legible and well... just too ugly for words.
> 
> So I figured I would look for something that produces high quality sheet
> music output with the intention of creating a dozen .png images that
> I could easily add to the epub.
> 
> That's how I came across lilypond and after spending the weekend reading
> the documentation and experimenting I was able to come up with something
> quite satisfactory. (cf. note 1)
> 
> But since I am not a musician not by any stretch of the imagination...
> and therefore I do not understand whether any changes that creep in
> matter or not... I am trying to have my lilypond output reproduce the
> original as faithfully as possible. 
> 
> So now that I have reached the point where song #1 is almost ready there
> are still a couple of minor but nonetheless annoying issues that need to
> be addressed before I can move on to the remaining eleven.
> 
> And one of them is getting rid of these naturals that are not in the
> original. 
> 
> I do realize that it is quite possible that the original typesetting of
> the song is at best sloppy in this respect and that lilypond is right
> amending it. 
> 
> But that's not for me to decide.
> 
> Obviously rather than tampering with lilypond's output after the fact
> I would much rather find a way to force the software to reproduce
> the original score down to every detail. 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the lenghty explanation but since this mailing list
> appears to be mostly a haunt for the the music-savvy... I thought
> I might make it clear that I am not trying to emulate Ludwig Van or
> Johannes B. but rather the anonymous grease monkey in the printer's
> shop.

This response seems to invite a brief explanation.

Your o.png image shows what your original score looks like. In it,
the fourth note is an F#. It's printed in the F-space, but the #
in the key signature on the F-line (top of staff) makes the note
into an F#. That's the rôle of a key signature.

If you write fis in your LP source, the F# will print without any
accidental because any note printed in the F-space has the key
signature applied to it. Again, that's the rôle of the key signature.

If you write f in your LP source, you're specifying a different (and
erroneous) note. LP now still prints the note in the F-space but has
to override the key signature by printing a ♮ in front of it. That
is what you are observing in the picture n.png (though you generated
it differently).

So because the composer printed an F# key signature, and all the
unadorned notes in and on the F-spaces/lines are the composed F#s,
you need to write them all as fis in your LP source.

If you do that, the business of printing the music in G# boils
down to adding "\transpose g gis" just once in the source.
If you do anything with "\set Staff.extraNatural = #ff", you will
get into an unholy mess which nobody, including yourself, will
understand or be able to help you with.

Cheers,
David.