Dear list, In English, pronouncing the 'natural' in 'C-natural' is required if the note is out-of-key. LilyPond does not consider the key when reading note-input, but could easily accept 'cn' as a name for the pitch C-natural. There was a feature request on the bug-list, that LilyPond do so.
Among those responding to the proposal, the Americans were in favor, while the British Germans Dutch and Flemish opposed. The worry is that if LilyPond accepts 'cn' without an error, this might imply that 'c' means something different than C-natural, causing someone accustomed to ABC or Amadeus input to type 'c' for the leading-tone in the key of D. The current situation, however, is more difficult for a user accustomed to other English-centric note-entry systems. LilyPond flags each 'cn' with "unrecognized string" and produces (usually) no engraved output. This might remind him that 'c' always means C-natural, and thus by implication that he should check his uses of 'c' to see if he ever meant 'cs'. But he must first change (most of) the 'cn's to 'c' to get any output, and then has no method better than %{comments%} to note which 'c's really meant C-natural. I tried using 'c!' in these cases, but not all C-naturals need a printed natural. If instead LilyPond accepts 'cn' as C-natural, and the documentation mentions that "in English 'cn' is accepted as a synonym for 'c'" (just after "in Dutch 'aes' is accepted as a synonym for 'as'") then LilyPond will give that hypothetical user engraved output. If he has used 'c' when he meant C-sharp, he can see that LilyPond typeset a C-natural, and hear it in the MIDI. This behavior form LilyPond would be at least kinder to the user. That user would want to remember "give LilyPond pitches, not scale-steps." Being able to type the explicit pitch 'cn' (when it is distinct from the scale-step C) seems to help in that goal. I have started using English note-entry with 'cn', etc., for naturals when I would say "natural" and I find it helpful. If anyone else will use it, I'll push for it and put it in LilyPond. __ \language "english" \new Staff \transpose c c'' { \key c\minor \partial 2 r16 g f g ef g d g | c g bn, g c g d g ef g g, g an, g bn, g | c g bn, g c g d g ef g d g c g bf, g | af, g bf, g c f af, f d f c f bf, f af, f | g, f af, f bf, ef g, ef c ef bf, ef af, ef g, ef | f, ef g, ef af, d f, d bn, d af, d g, d f, d | ef, d f, d g, c ef, c r2 } _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user