Re: [Denemo-devel] Gregorian Chant in Denemo

[Andreas Schneider]

Am 13.01.2017 um 23:21 schrieb Richard Shann:
> On Fri, 2017-01-13 at 21:23 +0100, Andreas Schneider wrote:
>> Thank you for all the work you put into the Gregorian chant. I have
>> inserted the missing things in the file by using my scheme scripts (I
>> have sent these in an earlier mail) and attached the result. There are
>> ligatures, first a pes (ligature from lower to higher note), then a
>> flexa (ligature from higher to lower note), and again a pes. The dot is
>> an augmentum. I am not quite sure how the melisma is meant, i.e. if the
>> "men" is to begin it the third or at the fith note, but I guess it's the
>> second option. For some reason, the spacing is a bit odd, maybe some
>> lilypond issues I am note aware of.
> 
> Yes, I'm sure that is sung with -men on the last two notes. 
> 
> Did you notice that the augmentae (if that's the right plural!) are
> wrongly placed by LilyPond? I asked(*) on the LilyPond mailing list
> about this, and got a complete silence. I think the LilyPond support for
> Gregorian chant is moribund. I created the augmentum dots using markup
> (did I send that version?), but they have to be dragged into position
> graphically.

I did notice that the augmenta were messed up, but I thought that I
might have missed some lilypond directive to use in such cases. Now I
know that is a problem of lilypond. Thank you for investigating.

> There is some sort of a warning about the maturity of LilyPond in the
> documentation:
> 
> "There is limited support for Gregorian square neumes notation
> (following the style of the Editio Vaticana). Core ligatures can already
> be typeset, but essential issues for serious typesetting are still
> lacking, such as (among others) horizontal alignment of multiple
> ligatures, lyrics alignment, and proper handling of accidentals."
> 
> but it is quite buried.
> As another example of possible limitations of the LilyPond support I
> couldn't control the underlay of the lyrics. I think the lyrics may have
> to be added as markup too - or perhaps as lyrics on a second invisible
> voice where you could control the spacing... 
> 
> If this is worth pursuing - if you can always get LilyPond to output
> what you want reliably then it would be good to look at whether the
> placing of the \[ and \] can be done without the user needing to think
> about the order of them relative to the \flexa or whatever ... That is -
> can you have a set of rhythmic patterns that the user can switch to
> which will insert all the right things in the right order - you just
> have to play the notes once you have selected the type of group you want
> to enter.

That would require a directive which asks about two notes and creates
the corresponding directives for, e.g., a flexa. I have no idea how to
do that, since several potential methods to input the notes (MIDI
keyboard, computer keyboard, mouse) would have to be cared for. It
sounds difficult to me.

Andreas