Mats Bengtsson wrote:
>
> I did some experiments and it turns out that most of the
> features people have requested for figured bass is actually
> supported in Lilypond if you use a lyrics line.
>
> Take a look at the following example. It illustrates how
> the figures can be typeset using both text scripts and
> lyric lines. Some things to note:
>
> - There's a bug in the script handling, ^"ABC"^"DEF"
> collapses into a single line. I tried with 1.3.57 which
> worked fine.
>
> - You could (in principle) have <5 6> in a lyrics line,
> but you have to add some clumsy details to get the
> context handling correct.
>
> - The syntax is very clumsy with all the quotation marks.
> However I don't see a way around that even if we implement
> more specific support for figured bass, since we need to
> separate the figures from the durations.
>
> - Another disadvantage of using lyric lines is that it's
> much easier to get lost in the input file when entering
> and correcting the figures.
>
> - I didn't use \addlyrics since only a fraction of the notes
> have figures and some notes have
>
> Comments or suggestions?
A problem with the textscript solution is (as far as I can see) that
b.c. figures won't necessarily be horizontally aligned for each line of
a score as they IMHO should be. Besides, as may be seen in your example,
the figures may come very close (too close) to the bass notes in case of
low notes.
> Can someone come up with an input syntax for a future
> figured bass engraver that's much better than what's
> offered today?
In the following suggestions I've taken some ideas from the bass figure
syntax of the MusiXTeX preprocessor pmx:
I would like to use a chord notation within angled brackets. In order to
distinct 'figur chords' from real chords I suggest prepending a suitable
token to the leading bracket, eg. 'b< bla bla bla >. Chromatic
alterations should be denoted by prepending a token to the figures (+
sharp, - flat, n natural). The figure bracket should follow after the
note it belongs to. Figures may be needed *after* the start of a bass
note and before *before* the next note (i.e. upon subdivisions of the
bass note note value). In that case an offset value should be appended
to the leading bracket, i.e. a count and a base note value, e.g. b<2,8
bla bla bla > signifying that the figures should be offset 2 eighthnotes
notes from the bass note. Multiple 'figure chords' may follow a bass
note. If there more than one the figure chords after the first must have
an offset defined. A continuation symbol (denoted by '0') should be
defined within its own figure chord brackets including a length
indication, e.g b<3,4 0 > signifying that the continuation line should
end 3 quarternotes after the bass note. Alternatively (following the pmx
method) the length could be indicated as a count of bass notes for which
the continuation line should be drawn. The bass figure engraver should
see to it that 'figure chords' are drawn at a suitable distance below
the lowest bass note per line.
--
Christian Mondrup, Computer Programmer
Scandiatransplant, Skejby Hospital, University Hospital of Aarhus
Brendstrupgaardsvej, DK 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
Phone: +45 89 49 53 01
