Re: Time bracket notation for very large scale compositions

[Andrew Culver]

Carl - Jean - Kieren - Tom:

Thank you so much for your responses and suggestions and examples. I will study 
and test it all diligently and get back to you.

One thing the first responder Shane got right: it’s a welcoming and helpful 
community. Very much something to be proud of.

Regards,

Andrew Culver

> On Apr 9, 2021, at 12:07, AHF <culver@anarchicharmony.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello LilyPeople,
> 
> I am looking into using LilyPond for future works. What I like about it is 
> the text input, which makes it very easy to integrate with the collection of 
> C programs and PostgreSQL functions I use to generate and manage music for 
> large-scale pieces. (I’m on a Mac.)
> 
> I have been doing this since the late 1980’s, for John Cage's operas, 
> installations, and films, and for my own large-scale orchestral works, such 
> as “Ocean 1-133” for 150 musician soloists over 90 minutes — see the Merce 
> Cunningham work “Ocean" if you are interested.
> 
> The parts for Ocean 1-133 (more than 3000 pages) were pulled from the 
> database and formatted using C code into the P-field file format of the 
> wonderful old Score program by Leland Smith. Like LilyPond, this format is 
> expressed with simple text files. Given the abandonment of Score and the 
> vibrancy of LilyPond, I want to know if I should be using LilyPond.
> 
> The example below is from one of Cage’s Number pieces, demonstrating Time 
> Bracket notation. The important challenges for a notation program are:
> - Each time bracket is centered on the page, and the system is only as long 
> as necessary.
> - No barlines.
> - Notes within the time bracket are distributed evenly horizontally. There is 
> no notion of tempo or meter.
> - Whole note noteheads - or any notehead I want, free of any metric 
> constraints.
> - Ample vertical spacing between time bracket systems.
> - Horizontally centered headers and footers (not shown).
> - Sometimes one piece runs over several pages (a “piece” is a set of time 
> brackets for one player).
> 
> <John-Cage-time-brackets.png>
> 
> Score had no problem doing this because fundamentally it was a CAD program 
> augmented by musical knowledge. With the P-field format, you essentially cut 
> out the musical knowledge layer. You got to put beautiful-looking music 
> symbols wherever you wanted them. From what I can tell, the musical knowledge 
> part of the equation is too deeply baked in to most notation programs, such 
> that if you don’t need it, or want to invent new rules, you are stuck trying 
> to trick the program into not doing what it “helpfully” insists on doing.
> 
> I need to be able to generate 100% of the .ly files from C, taking as a 
> source the composition in the database (which was also generated, using 
> chance operations, with C code). Because of the volume of pages, hand 
> tweaking the parts is not an option.
> 
> So:
> 1. Is LilyPond up to the job? 
> 2. What commands are used to do the time bracket centering, meter-free 
> notehead selection, bar-less notehead equidistant spacing, etc.?
> 3. Is LilyPond going to gracefully let me set music symbols where I want 
> them, or will I be constantly having to fool it into compliance at every 
> turn? A follow-up question: If I do have to work around LilyPond’s 
> “knowledgeable” music formatting “conveniences”, will these work-arounds end 
> up being “corrected” in future versions, thus breaking my existing code?
> 
> BTW, I am open to hiring a knowledgeable LilyPerson as a time-saving and 
> inspirational resource. Reply to this email if you are interested.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Andrew Culver
> 
> 
>