Supported notations

The non-traditional notations include commands which are in the modified LilyPond which I have compiled. These changes are not yet in the distributed LilyPond, but may be soon.

There are table describing the notations. Using alternative notations can be done without reading these files. Adding a new notations requires modifying chromatic.ly. The tables are contained in include/chromatic.ly, with an additional helper file is in include/chromatic-helper.ly. The entire include directory is available for viewing.

The tables include the following information, which describes a large number of alternative notations. This information is contained in chromatic.ly. Users do not need to understand all of the values. Someone who wants to add a new notation needs to find the following information on the new notation.

staff

A numeric list of each staff line position in an octave.

ledger

A numeric list of each ledger line position in an octave.

middleCPosition

A number stating the position of middle C.

g-clef-from-c

The numeric distance between C and G, which is where the G clef is positioned.

positions-per-octave

The number of distinct positions in an octave.

layout

Described how notes are positioned. Currently semitone or twinline.

shape-note-styles

For notations which have changing noteheads, a list of each notehead for each of the 12 semitones, starting with C.

In addition, chromatic-helper.ly allows the use of lower-octave and upper-octave, which are the octave number of the lowest octave and highest octaves displayed for a continuous staff. The exact description needs additional work.

Changes in notehead color are not currently supported.

Traditional notation

This is just the traditional notation. I don't use the table for this notation. These are the notations currently supported by the table. Many other notations could be easily added, probably taking less than 30 minutes per notation. Some notations cannot yet be supported by this setup.

6-6 Tetragram

This should largely match the description in the web page.

Avique

The external ledger lines are not correct.

Mirck

The external ledger lines are not correct. The head color are not correct.

Twinline

This prototype uses a standard note head for C, D, E, F#, G#, and A#. It uses an upward pointing triangle for C#, F, and A. It uses a downward pointing triangle for D#, G, and B. The standard notehead and the upward pointing triangle are noteheads which are already available under LilyPond. I added the downward pointing triangle.

The standard notehead, the upward-pointing triangle before it, and the downward-pointing triangle after it are all in the same vertical position. This may cause undesirable behavior in beaming.

Twinline-2

This is a slightly different version of Twinline, with more separation between the notes. The traditional notes don't always touch the lines. However, each note has a different vertical position.

kevin

This is just 6-6 Tetragram with 3 styles of noteheads, with the noteheads changing at every semitone. This may work nicely with a chromatic accordion, which is a 4-4-4 instrument.