Comment #2 on issue 3065 by [email protected]: Baroque french tab support
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=3065
There was a long discussion on the tablature mailing list at lilynet.net around 3 years ago, but the archives for that list seem to have gone missing. At the time I began implementing this, but only managed to add the means of showing fingering with letters rather than numbers before I had to abandon the work due to RSI in my wrist. One email I posted to the tablature list in Nov 2009 might still be of interest, shown here slightly edited.
Trevor --- note from [email protected] --- 15/11/2009 --- I was inspired by the appearance of the Baroque lute tablature produced by Fronimo and the interest shown in adding this capability to LilyPond by several users, including Dana Emery, Laura Conrad, Marc Hohl and others recently. I've been considering how this functionality might be added to LilyPond. As a reminder, examples of this tablature can be seen at http://www.mateus-lutes.com/tablature/. I've attached a pdf showing what can be achieved by modifying the input stream to insert markups to render the durations above the tab context and the bass courses below the tab context, but otherwise using just standard LilyPond input syntax. This is the first two systems from the mateus-lutes site referenced above. The Scheme for doing this is rather messy - it was just a lash-up to see what was possible by applying a function to the input stream - but as this is not the way it should be implemented I'm not attaching it. Here's what I've learned: a) Most of the glyphs needed to output Baroque lute tablature would need to be designed. The glyphs used for the fret indications and bass courses I 'borrowed' from the Fronimo site - these would need to be redesigned for LilyPond as the Fronimmo licence does not permit commercial use. The glyphs used for the durations are taken from the standard LilyPond font set, but are not so beautiful as the Fronimo durations; they could with advantage be redesigned but are OK for a starter. There are also a few more glyphs like the section separator and end-of-piece indicator that would need to be designed. b) Markups above and below a standard tab seems quite satisfactory to indicate durations and bass courses, and are easy to implement. c) Right hand fingerings and string indications can be easily rendered in Baroque style, although the precise placement of the right hand fingerings will need more control. d) I haven't yet looked into adding the decorations (the comma, the small curve and line under notes) mainly because I'm not sure what they represent musically. e) But the big lesson is that transcribing from tab to tab via notemode is totally impractical. I and many lutenists do not know what pitch a particular fingering generates. A tabmode entry form will be essential. This has some obvious difficulties, the main one being the lack of information about how accidentals should be represented when outputted in a standard staff. Not sure what to do about this. Attachments: lutetab-as-markup-16.pdf 157 KB
