Hello all,
First of all thanks very much for this fantastic software that is Lilypond.
I eventually got it working after frustrating hours and I'm still in the dark as
to how I made it work, but I guess that's life. Yes Miktex seems to be pretty
complex.
My problem may not be a lilypond issue but a miktex one, though I'm sure you'd
know better on this list. When I tried the angels.ly test, I got the dvi OK, but
yap complains, here's part of the log book :
=========
Loading page 1...
Making PK font feta-nummer10...
start: C:\program\texmf\miktex\bin\makepk.exe --verbose feta-nummer10 600 600
magstep(0.0) ljfour
name: feta-nummer10, dpi=600, bdpi=600, mag=magstep(0.0), mode=ljfour
- C:\program\texmf\miktex\bin\makemf.exe --verbose feta-nummer10
Cannot find feta-nummer source file.
- C:\program\texmf\miktex\bin\ttf2pk.exe -q -n feta-nummer10 600
Consulting C:\program\texmf\miktex\config\miktex.map...
Don't know how to make feta-nummer10.pk!
Error: Cannot create font feta-nummer10.
feta-nummer10 not loadable - loading cmr10 instead!
feta-nummer10: checksum mismatch
=========
The funny thing is that dvips does not complain (after 5 iterations between
'initexmf -u' and 'dvips angels.dvi' to get rid of font making complaints and
get the fonts into the ps doc) and shows the expected result (3/4, C, ... font).
Other music pieces do the same as angels.
I'd appreciate if someone could help or point me to the right doc.
Maybe the problem lies in yap not being able to find a font in a directory with
a space ?
Note that I am using Lilypond with MiKTeX on a windows 98 platform.
Queries :
1/
Does anyone know about utility programs that convert from these formats I don't
know yet (filename extensions are : .pmx, .mtx, .mus and .mts) for conversion to
.ly and/or .midi ?
Preferred answer would point to portable source code and/or win32 binaries.
Other answers could point to documented standards for the above formats.
2/
Is the Mutopia project interested in everything or just some categories ?
E.g. is the project keen on (clean) drinking songs as well as the best of
Classical music and whatever else ?
3/
Do you lads know about TiMidity++ ? I would guess the answer is some of you do.
Would it be much to tie in with TiMidity++ as far as instrument names are
concerned - and to explore the possibility to use more extensive possibilities
of Midi (in order to use the right sound samples if present) ? Sorry I may say
something that sounds silly because I know so little about Midi, but I am under
the impression that Midi can handle more than the list of instruments included
in lilypond.ps (pages "63" and "64" or 65&66/76).
Just in case you don't know about TiMidity++, this is a freeware & opensource
midi player of much better quality than many standard ones as it includes sound
samples of similar quality to commercial grade keyboard synths. You can get it
at : http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/timidity/ - beware, there is a whole pile
of things to download - about 22MB nad it takes about 29MB once uncompressed.
Suggestions :
Only help I can provide is proof read the docs and misc files at this point
besides my pretty limited experience of lilypond so far.
1/
In italiano.ly : it says that ut is the french for do. In actual fact this is
not quite right. In ancient times it used to be the case, but do IS the one used
in french (I'm french and I have been a music amateur for quite some time now).
The only case where ut has been kept is to name the family of c clefs and do is
never used for them.
I created a simple frenglish.ly file that includes both english and french
notations (a combination of english.ly and italiano.ly plus some long names in
french to avoid switching from one to the other - I just include this in all my
files), please see attached file for those interested (should it make it into
the distribution package ?).
2/
In glossary.ps, it would be nice to have :
2-a/
A correspondance table for note values in different languages (more readable
than the reference from english to whichever and works boths ways).
2-b/
A correspondance value of note durations (same as above).
3/
In lilypond.ps, page "21" (23/76) I think there is an error in the table, [sid]
should be replaced by [sib] twice : for Italiano and Catalan. and to make it
nicer for the french one could duplicate the line for italiano, to be named
fran�ais (and possibly create the file from my frenglish that combines french
and english).
Question : is it possible to use non ascii characters in token names (e.g. to
include files, to name parts, ...) ?
4/
It took me a little while to understand how to put lyrics under two separate
voices, see the attached Vin-Clairet.ly to see what I mean. This psample piece I
attached or some equivalent, or maybe just a simple one liner might be welcome
in the tutorial section of lilypond.ps so newcomers like me will find it easier
to achieve.
5/
Tremolo marks page "31" (33/76) of lilypond.ps shows twice the same symbol,
should it not show two different symbols ?
6/
Give sample for altering margins (to include longer instrument names on the left
for instance), I'd love that.
7/
The tagline item of the header is not documented, particularly, the usage of
specials like \\\\ or any other there may be. More generally a better
documentation (reference material) of the header and its internals. Or maybe I
just read lilypond.ps too fast.
8/
In midi2ly, would it be a big task to guess the key automatically ? And detect
that a B-flat should be computed instead of an A-sharp if the key found makes
this better ?
9/
Also in midi2ly, would it be a big task to correct (depending on an option) the
length of notes since manual play is rather not exact and assume less skips than
detected ? And also display rests rather than skips when these are large enough
and comparable in length to notes prior or following the skip/rest ?
Example attached : Vin-Clairet-original.ly & Vinclair.mid.
10/
That's a comment I left in one of my .ly files :
\header
...
piece = "Vivace";
% As Jeff Covey says, it is not correct to use [piece] for the
% tempo, but it is the one that looks best.
% Maybe there is room for one more keyword, say call it (I'm
% being very creative here) [tempo] and place it rigth underneath
% the [piece] displayed element and shift the whole scores down a
% bit to make room - or shift the [piece] up a bit.
% And while you're at it align the left side of the [tempo] with
% the start of the first staff.
11/
In ly2dvi enhance the error messages, they are not always very meaningful to the
layman (me). A number of times I was looking for the wrong information to try
and correct simple things (mostly extra or missing ';' not advertised as such in
the error message : cannot find output file or some such).
Bug :
Try to display instruments, request a starting bar and look at the result !
See attached problem.ly
Regards,
Alain.
frenglish.ly
problem.ly
Vinclair.mid
Vin-Clairet-original.ly
Vin-Clairet.ly
