Re: ottava signs

[Malte Meyn]

Am 01.10.19 um 23:13 schrieb Joram:
> 1. ottava for arbitrary octavations (>2)
>
> This currently produces broken output:
> { \ottava #3 a }
> The warning in your patch¹ addresses that and the patch extends the
> default range up to ± 4 which seems enough (I am not sure how far the
> …ma naming works correctly in italian). The code below does it for any
> octavation.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Off-topic comment (enclosed in %%%) first: Instead of using nested “if”s 
you could use cond:

\set Staff.ottavation =
     #(cond
       ((= octave +0) #f)
       ((= octave -1) #{ \markup \concat { "8" \fontsize #-2 "va" } #})
       ((= octave +1) #{ \markup \concat {
         "8" \fontsize #-2
         \translate-scaled #'(0 . 0.85) "va"
         } #})
       ((< octave -1) #{ \markup \concat {
         #(number->string (+ 1 (* -7 octave)))
         \fontsize #-2 "ma"
         } #})
       (else #{ \markup \concat {
         #(number->string (+ 1 (* 7 octave)))
         \fontsize #-2
         \translate-scaled #'(0 . 0.85) "ma"
         } #}))
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I’m not 100% sure about the italian either but I think it’s

        8th = ottava → 8va
        15th = quindicesima → 15ma
        22nd = ventiduesima → 22ma
        29th = ventinovesima → 29ma

Gould recommends 22da, perhaps for ventiseconda or something similar 
inspired by english?

> 2. nice line spanners (top- or bottom-aligned, dotted etc.)
>
> Thanks for the dotted edges. Very much appreciated. Can they be
> top-aligned above the staff and bottom-aligned below the staff? That’s
> what I would prefer (cf. your question to foxfanfare in the last mail).

That’s what Gould recommends, yes. But I’m not sure how to implement 
this: One could

a) use a single number/direction for “alta” ottavations and mirror it 
for “bassa” → somehow inflexible and if you use a direction, it’s also 
confusing.
b) use a pair of numbers/directions → looks complicated but IMO better 
than a).
c) don’t have a grob property for that at all but just take the 
“natural” alignment of the markup. You then would need to set everything 
different from bottom-aligned by hand as in
        \set Staff.ottavation = \markup \general-align #Y #UP "15"

For cases a) and b) we would need a good name for that grob property. 
Any ideas?
I find case c) the most elegant *iff* you don’t set ottavation by hand. 
This would also need a good convert-ly rule for those who set it by hand 
in the past.

> However, the reasoning in the SMuFL 1.3 specifications ("Implementation
> notes") about "ma" vs. "mb" convinced me that 15mb does not make sense
> and I’d suggest to use 15ma etc. as default setting.

Hm … Gould recommends 15ma and 22da (see above for 22ma vs. 22da) and 
lists 8va, 8ba, 8va bassa as alternatives but not 8vb. I’ll search for 
real-world engraved examples.

> I would even change the style to bold italic.

This has nothing to do with ottavationMarkups, you can \override 
Staff.OttavaBracket.font-series = #'bold and it will show the desired 
effect. But maybe we should make this the default, yes.