Mats Bengtsson wrote:
>
> Hej Christian!
>
> I recently incorporated mensural tempus signs into the font used
> in Lilypond, the GNU Project Music Typesetter.
> You could view the symbols from the Lilypond web site,
> http://www.cs.ruu.nl/people/hanwen/lilypond/index.html
> Just click on "Reference Manual", search for the word
> "timeSignatureStyle" and yuo will find an example a few
> lines below.
>
> If you wish to use the symbols in MusiXTeX, you could either
> copy the full font (the MetaFont source files are in the mf/
> directory of the Lilypond source tree) and define some suitable
> TeX commands to access them or you could use the source code
> (from mf/feta-timesig.mf) as inspiration for you own implementation
> in for example xgreggen.mf in MusiXTeX. You simply have to replace
> some Lilypond specific MetaFont macros.
This is just what I need :-) I choose to install the fonts - the whole
Lilypond package as a matter of fact - and thus have full access to all
it's printing types.
The song 'Seruants out of Seruice' by Thomas Ravenscroft newly published
on the GMD archive demonstrates how I make use of the Lilypond mensural
notation symbol 'Tempus imperfectum cum prolatione perfecta', a broken
circle with a dot inside. I print it in the incipit of the score showing
the meter(s), clefs, signs and leading notes of the original part books.
In the file chngclfs.tex included into the mtx source file I define this
mensural notation macro:
% Tempus imperfecetum cum prolatione perfecta
% using LilyPond font feta16
%
\font\lilyfnt=feta16%
%
\def\oldm{\lilyfnt\char76}%
\def\imperfp{\roffset{.5}{\zcharnote3{\oldm}}}%
allowing me to reference it in a mtx music paragraph where I need it:
m1/8/0/0 \imperfp\nexts\ r8b ||
m1/8/0/0 \imperfp\nexta\ r8b ||
m1/8/0/0 \imperfp\nextt\ r8b ||
m1/8/0/0 \imperfp\nextb\ r8b ||
The \nexts\ etc. macros are used for printing mensural notation style
notes with diamond heads. These printing types are in the MusiXTeX
fonts, but not - yet - in Lilypond.
When I started experimenting with the fonts I didn't know myself how to
get access to a TeX font and the key codes of it's printing types. A TeX
guru then told me how to use the TeX testfont utility. For those of you
also missing this information I repeat it here:
At the command prompt enter 'tex testfont' and print the name of the
font when prompted for it. The font name you want is a file name within
the texmf/fonts/source directory tree. Next you may enter \help to get a
list of commands, eg \table that produces a dvi file with a table of all
the printing types in the current font ready to print out. End your
testfont section with the command \end.
In my first mutex posting on the current subject I also asked for advice
on printing brackets indicating mensural notation ligatures. I allow
myself to repeat this question :-)
Regards
--
Christian Mondrup, Computer Programmer
Scandiatransplant, Skejby Hospital, University Hospital of Aarhus
Brendstrupgaardsvej, DK 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
Phone: +45 89 49 53 01, Telefax: +45 89 49 60 07
