On Sunday, February 25, 2001 6:51 AM, David Bobroff
[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I want to connect a single note to a triplet beam with the
connection being
> only a single beam. I've not figured out how to do this in pmx.
Consider
> the one-measure example (I've edited the set-up block so that it is
> a single measure):
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> 1 1 4 4 4 4 0 -2
> 1 1 20 0.08
>
> b
> ./
> r1d [ f32 Df g8x3 f en ] f8d d1+ b2 /
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
>...
> Can I achieve this same beaming with a rest at the beginning, or do
> I have to edit the *.tex file?
>
Last question first: When using PMX, it's usually a bad idea to rely
on editing the *.tex, because every time after that when you want to
change ANYTHING in the *.pmx, you'll have to re-edit *.tex. But the
good news is that there are two other kinds of solutions. First you
could ask for the feature you want to be built into PMX, but that
could take anywhere from 2 days to forever. (In fact I will have a
look at this one, because it is syntactically possible and logically
sensible, so it ought to work). The other kind of solution is
in-line TeX; it's immediately available and almost always can solve
the problem. And if you know enough TeX to get your desired result
by manually editing *.tex, then you know about 90% of what you need
to do it with in-line TeX.
This is a PERFECT example. Here's a solution; then I'll explain the
process in some generality for anyone who's interested.
===============
r1d
\let\rbbbut\rbbbu\def\rbbbu#1{\rbbu{#1}\let\rbbbu\rbbbut}\
[ f32 Df \nbbu1\ g8x3 f en ] f8d d1+ b2 /
===============
The general process is
(1) Generate (using PMX) or imagine what TeX will actually be
generated by the "bare" PMX.
(2) Manually generate or imagine what TeX you want.
(3) Comparing the two, insert or redefine macros into the first in
order to generate the second.
(4) Enter the insertions and/or redefinitions into *.pmx using in-
line TeX.
In this case the relevant section of TeX from the original source is
\pnotes{1.00}\ibbbu1F0\pmxdyn{-7}0\f\rbbbu1\qb1F\en%
\pnotes{1.15}\xnum{1.15}B3\qb1G\qb1F\bigna E\tbu1\qb1E\en%
where \rbbbu is a right-shifted beam termination defined in pmx.tex
as \roff{\tbbbu{#1}} . The TeX you want is
\pnotes{1.00}\ibbbu1F0\pmxdyn{-7}0\f\rbbu1\qb1F\en%
\pnotes{1.15}\xnum{1.15}B3\nbbu1\qb1G\qb1F\bigna E\tbu1\qb1E\en%
I got this by playing around with the TeX, and I confess I didn't get
it right the first time. But one of the great things about our
software system is that it doesn't cost you anything (except time) to
do this sort of experimentation. In this case I wasn't sure if I
needed \rbbbu1\rbbu1 or just \rbbu1 so I tried both. In fact they
both worked but I'm a bit of an efficiency freak :-)
So first I want to REPLACE \rbbbu1 in the original TeX with \rbbu1.
The longish piece of inline TeX does exactly that. The steps here
are
(1) store the meaning of the original macro in a temporary token
using \let.
(2) redefine the original macro to (a) do what you want, and then (b)
restore itself (!) to its original meaning with another \let .
Sometime (b) isn't needed (because MusiXTeX redefines many things
itself internally at various times), but it never hurts.
The second modification to the original TeX is to simply insert
\nbbu1, to increase the beam multiplicity back up to 2.
Sometimes the insertion or replacement process is complicated due to
PMX's rigid rules for where it puts in-line TeX: generally any type-1
strings will go before the PMX-generated TeX associated with the note
in question. For example, for the first mod in this case we might
have wanted to simply insert \rbbu1 after \rbbbu1 . But there's no
way to get PMX to put it there with a simple insertion.
This exercise does suggest a possible future PMX enhancement: an
option on a type-1 TeX string that forces it to be placed immediately
before the note (or next "spacing" command). Would anyone ever use
such an animal?
--Don Simons
