First off, I want to say that I really appreciate the work that the authors
have put into this music typesetting software--so far, I've been quite
impressed! However, there is still some work to be done...
All of what I am about to address refers to version 1.2.0, so if these
things have been fixed I apologize in advance for bringing them up! Also,
some of what I address may stem from my ignorance of the finer points of
mudela... And so, disclaimers out of the way, here we go:
Gripe #1: Chord symbols. If you look on page 2 on the third staff down,
you'll see a monstrosity that reads "C#m5-/6/no5" which is really just a
C#o7 (C-sharp diminished 7th). Also, same page at the beginning of the
second staff there is a symbol there that reads "Bb6" which is supposed to
be a Bb6/C. Aside from the bass note not showing, why does it insist that
it be part of the chord? Many times the note following the slash is not
part of the chord that precedes it but a pedal tone or some other
non-chordal tone. Also, as far as I can remember from my music theory, a
diminshed triad not only has a flat fifth but also a flatted *third* as
well. Would it be possible to have lilypond typeset alternate symbols for
chord modifiers such as a small open circle for diminished chords and a
small open circle with a slash through it for indicating the so-called
"half-dimished" chord? I'm sure that other countries have similar symbolic
abbreviations that could be included as well (though I have no idea what
they would look like). One last thing about chords--why does lily complain
about my rests that I have in my \ChordNames block? It complains even if I
surround the rests with a \note {} block...
Gripe #2: Slurring across staves. In documentation it states that a
PianoStaff context is used for slurring across staves, though I can't figure
out how other than the mess that you see in the \PianoStaff block. (An
aside: why doesn't PianoStaff or GrandStaff create two staves instead of
one? I don't think I've ever seen a grand staff or a piano staff with only
one staff in it.) Anyway, is there an easier way of getting slurs across
staves other than the way I have done?
Gripe #3: Grace notes. If you look at page 1 and bar 7, there is supposed
to be an eighth note grace note there, but there's only a stem line on my
output. It seems that MF chokes on feta-accordian.mf somewhere in the
middle and so MF can't create feta13--I assume that this is why it doesn't
print out.
Gripe #4: Tempo marking. It would be nice if lily typeset the tempo that I
have set near the beginning in a somewhat standard way (such as: .| = 110,
where ".|" is a small quarter note).
Gripe #5: Staff labeling. Is it possible to label each staff at the
beginning of a piece (i.e., text to the left of the beginning of each
stave)? This would be especially nice to have for scores where it is not
necessarily obvious what the instrumentation is.
Gripe #6: Fonts. Is it possible to change the face and size of the various
font elements such as the title, composer line, lyrics, etc? Will it ever
be possible in future for me to typeset the title in say Humanist Light?
Gripe #7: Stem sizes. If your look at the piano line you'll see that the
second stem of the eighth note groups is quite short--it looks funny. The
reverse looks OK--having a short stem followed by a long one--but it would
look better if the second stem was either longer or had an even steeper
cross beam.
Gripe #8: Text collisions. Look at page 2, staff #7. For some reason,
lily is not allowing enough room for the text as it does elsewhere
throughout the piece. A bug perhaps?
Again, fine work! It just needs a little tweaking, though, IMHO.
HouseOnTheOcean.ly
