============JN
Again, ly/params.ly:
%{
stems in unnatural (forced) direction should be shortened,
according to [Roush & Gourlay]. Their suggestion to knock off
a whole staffspace seems a bit drastical: we'll do half.
--------------
I wouldn't (won't :-)) do *any* by default, unless off the staff. That
must be the source of most of the weirdness. The thing needs
customization, not compromise. I see that shortening stems like that
would be very good for 1st and 2nd vlns on a single staff in a score or
part for example, but I don't see the point of shortening stems where
the heads are on the staff for a solo instrument which employs lots of
leger lines, unless the notes be in a subordinate third or fourth inside
part (on a single staff), where room is at a premium. Even in an inside
voice, it would be bad to shorten the notes of a lead melody in an
inside part, and those notes should keep the same stem direction if at
all possible. In an outside voice, unless the note is off the staff, the
notes don't look consistent if you often change the number of parts from
one measure to the next, which most writers of guitar music do a lot. I
think that Roush's and Gourlay's suggestion was not well considered
because it is too general, or neither noticed that the notes that they
most often saw shortened were very high and low notes. In either case,
they should be fired for a lack of attention to the whatifs, and I will
add their names to my list of authors not to bother reading.
================
%}
forced_stem_shorten0 = 1.0;
but you can do 2.0, if you like. Problem is that difference between
normal and shortened stems is ugly. Engravers decided upon context
whether to shorten stems. I don't think that this:
> shortened gradually from the first leger line (3.5 linespaces) to the
> fourth leger line (2.5 linespaces--an elegant minimum, allowing for
will do, because (non-beamed) stems should have discrete lengths.
--------------------
??????? But the stems *are* shortened for "forced" very high and low
notes. The relevant context, for outside parts, *is* the distance from
the staff.
Also for forced notes, in a given part, the 8th note at the end of the
beam farthest from the staff should always have the same length as an
unbeamed note of the same pitch, unless it must be lengthened to
accomodate other beamed notes. This is a source of weirdness in hand
engraved music, and very easy to avoid. You draw that note first, get
the slant, (which lilypond does very well) then lengthen *all*, if
necessary, to get the inside heads off the beam, but you never shorten
any more. There is no reason to center or average the stem lengths of
the beamed notes once you have the outside stem and the slant, and I
hope you don't. If you don't, then the stem lengths will be great. If
you do, then that is another source of weirdness.
Also, why did anyone want to *further* shorten stems unnecessarily on
beamed forced notes but lengthen them to the center on unforced notes?
This made no sense if long stems looked so good to them.
Because they were lazy, lazy, lazy. In this, their practice does not
deserve respect much less emulation.
==================
We'd first have to know what exactly we want. Maybe we could shorten
by .5 staffspace if forced, and shorten by 1.0 staffspace if forced
*and*
notehead outside of staff, for example. Hmm, now that I write this,
maybe we should have a list of shorten-values, for each staff position,
or even a scm function. One day...
-------------
Bless You. Thanks a million. It would look a lot better, and save a lot
of paper.
It would also be appropriate to apply it *as a default* only to the top
and bottom voices. Could the amount of shortening on inside parts, if
any, and the stem direction, be done by some kind of settings for
discrete parts, so that the writer could choose the stem behavior among
part types, and the reader could find the tune inside the tangles?
Let's be more specific. I have a bass part, a tenor lead which reaches
the top space E on a G/8 clef, and a top part which is arpeggio and
sometimes crosses the tenor. I would want the low basses proportionately
shortened, the tenor not shortened and always stem down except for
unison, and the arpeggio part high notes proportionately shortened. Of
course there is only one staff. Could I write the unison (with bass)
tenor note as a 4th or 5th part set for that behavior?
May the day be soon! :-)
Dave
--
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | GNU LilyPond - The music
typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien/ | http://www.lilypond.org/
