Han-Wen wrote: > > Some questions: > > - what's the placement rule for the horizontal beams on 16ths?
Beams are always horizontal, always cover a staff line and they don't care where they might intersect with note stems. For down-pointing stems, the beam covers "a" (la, second staff line from bottom) unless the run of 16ths contains a "b" or lower, in which case the beam moves down to the "f" line, the bottom of the staff. In order for the beam to be moved to the center-line, one of the notes must reach the higher "f" (top space) and the group must contain no notes *lower* than "e". If the group contains an "f" but also a "d", the beam remains on the "a" line. This scheme is precisely inverted for up-pointing pointing stems: Beam is on "e" unless run goes "d" or higher, in which case beam moves to "g" line (top). Run must contain low "g" to move beam to center line, but if the same run contains a note higher than "a", the beam will stay on the "e"-line and will not descend to the center-line. I'm still looking for examples of beamed 16ths above the staff to see what they do. Having written all of that out, I think I see what you mean by "special routine." > - the length of 8th note stems varies between 2 and 2.5 staff space. > What's the reasoning behind this? Juergen says: /* Mensural notation: For notes on staff lines, use different flags than for notes between staff lines. The idea is that flags are always vertically aligned with the staff lines, regardless if the note head is on a staff line or between two staff lines. In other words, the inner end of a flag always touches a staff line. */ I say: It definitely has this effect, and he's right to observe that we don't get the same affect with up-pointing stems. I don't know the reason, but I would point out that there are other differences between up-and-down line-8ths and space-8ths. The heads of line-8ths and space-8ths are different sizes, the space-heads begin smaller so as to more clearly show that they are contained in the space. The stem-up-space-eighths also have their head slightly slanted. So, they are really 4 different shapes, I think. Actually, I suspect that a lot of these little differences stem from the fact than when these books began to be mechanically typeset they were closely imitating a manuscript style. The different shape* (not just the length- the stem is thinner at the top) of the down-stem on a space-head, for example, comes from holding the pen differently in order to make a smaller notehead. At any rate, the 8th note is certainly the most common glyph in the bunch, and I suspect that the variety among is part of what makes it possible to set the notes so closely without a cramped or mechanical appearance. I have seen chant set with round notes that are spaced like kievan notes, and the appearance is painful. One more note about 8ths: Stems don't turn upwards until the notehead gets down to line 2. However, stem direction *is* decided by neighboring stems, so an "a" note can set a subsequent "b" upward, until a c turns the tide again. That deciduous-stem option sponsored by Basil Crow might come in handy here. (?) > - how is the Y-position of the final (two horizontal bars) determined? The pitch is between the 2 bars, as with the halfnote. I may have misused the word "final." I meant the last note of the hymn, which is held to an arbitrary duration. In the example listed first on my jpg image page: f1\fermata (could be f2\fermata, depending on what comes next). Thank you for your responses. I will respond separately to the other message about sponsorship. Fr. P _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list lilypond-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
