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Re: number of staff lines
Re: number of staff lines
Tue, 7 Feb 2012 22:18:19 -0500
My understanding is that the scholarly convention for describing
clefs is the clef's note (g1, c1, f, G) followed by the line number, counted
from the bottom. Thus on a five line staff, French violin clef is g1,
treble clef is g2, soprano clef is c1, mezzo-soprano clef is c2,
alto clef is c3, tenor clef is c4, baritone clef is c5 or f3,
bass clef is f4, sub-bass clef is f5, gamma clef is G3
(where gamma in the bottom of the gamut [ gamma to ut ], a bass
singer's low G ).
The merit of the scheme is that it specifies pitch unambiguously for
the common five-line staff, chant four-line staff, which has a clef
signature for c1 on any of the four lines, and Escorial, which has a six line staff,
or for a staff with any other number of lines. It does, however, assume
that the various specified notes fall on a line, which is not the case with
a staff displaced by octaves, such as the common convention of notating
a tenor line in tenor clef an octave down. Such cases, however, are
normally notated as an octave (or more) up or down.
LilyPond in my experience supports the cx (x=1,...) nicely for a five
line staff. I haven't tried it out for other number of lines in the staff.
I think also the fx (x=1,...).
On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Nils <address@hidden>
On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:42:03 +0100
David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
> Nils <address@hidden> writes:
> > Hello,
> > I would like to ask for a quick confirmation, since I never worked
> > with an even-numbered staff line count.
> > If you reduce your stafflines with
> > \override StaffSymbol #'line-count = #3
> > or #1 or any odd number there is no question. With a treble clef the
> > b' is on the middle line and lines are removed/added above and below.
> > with even numbers like #2 or #4 the b' is not on a line anymore but
> > all stafflines move one step down so a' and c'' are now on the lines.
> > Is this correct and common engraver practice?
> Anything but a line count of 5 is not common engraver practice with
> modern clefs. The various clefs have a dedicated _line_ they are
> focused on. G for the treble clef, F for the bass clef, C for the viola
> (tenor?) clef. For square chant notation, you tend to have four lines
> and an older clef pointing out the C.
> Personally, I don't know the vertical position of the standard clefs
> when using four lines, but I would be very much surprised if they lost
> the fixed relation to their "key" line.
> David Kastrup
> lilypond-user mailing list
I talked to a few persons in the university today and they all agreed that the line on which a clef is is variable for any number of lines.
But a clef should be never be in between lines, which is what Lilypond does.
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