Re: NoteNames and alternative note names

[Valentin Villenave]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 11:12 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
> Dear Lilipondians
>
> (or should I say Lilyponderers ;)

I like both. We sometimes use LilyPonders, as well :-)

> I'm trying to typeset notes with "alternative" names (i.e. not c, d, e
> etc, but i, o, e, u, a --  as is customary in Balinese Gamelan).

Very interesting. LilyPond doesn't support Balinese music yet, but
we'd happily add that if you can explain it to us a bit more. (Or,
better, provide us with some references, links, documents etc.) Can
you help us?

> The scores are sometimes for people who are not so proficient at reading
> classical notation, so I'd like to put the names above (or below) the
> score. NoteNames to the rescue. Or not?

Well, in theory yes. However... (see below)

> The problem is, I get "h", "c" and so on, instead of "i", "o", as can be
> seen in this little snippet:

Indeed. This bug has been known (and forgotten) for a long time; I've
just added it to our bug-tracker:
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1367

> Thanks for any pointes. I'm somewhat comfortable with Scheme, but I
> haven't yet managed to get a feeling of the whereabouts within Lilypond.

Since you're familiar with Scheme, you may use the following hack
(adapting it to your needs, of course):

\include "espanol.ly"

newnames =
#`(("c" . "a")
   ("d" . "e")
   ("e" . "i")
   ("f" . "o")
   ("g" . "u")
   ("a" . "y")
   ("b" . "z"))

myNoteNames =
#(lambda (grob)
   (let* ((default-name (ly:grob-property grob 'text))
          (new-name (assoc-get default-name newnames)))
         (ly:grob-set-property! grob 'text new-name)
   (ly:text-interface::print grob)))

notes = \relative do' { do re mi do }

\new Staff \with { instrumentName = "lala" }
<<
  \notes
  \context NoteNames \with {
    \override NoteName #'stencil = #myNoteNames
  } { \notes }
>>

However, please do help us supporting Balinese pitch names properly!

Yours Pondly,
Valentin.