As one of the GDP helpers I'm having a first look at the Songs section which is to go into the new Learning Manual. It will be based on the Tutorial Songs section (section 2.4) in the present User Manual. This is rather short at present, and I would like to extend it. The question is, by how much. I'd welcome your views on the suggestions below. In particular, is this too long? Does this cover too many/too few topics? How many examples should be included? Are these good examples? Is the division into subsections optimal? Are the subsection headings right?
IMO some of the explanations of lyrics in the vocal section of the present manual (section 7.3) are written in a tutorial style, and the easier parts of these could be moved with advantage into the Learning Manual. I am thinking in particular of sections 7.3.1 Setting simple songs and the easier parts of some other sections. Most of the _concepts_ associated with lyrics need to be introduced in the Learning Manual, as they are pretty well all needed whenever lyrics need to be set. But only the minimum number of technicalities should be covered; all alternative methods and all tweaks should remain in the new Notation Reference and simply referenced. Here's an outline of my thoughts on a possible new structure. It actually covers little more than the present Tutorial section, but includes more examples and splits the material up into subsections. The interpersing text could be quite brief. Lyrics (rather than Songs?) * Setting simple songs - introduce \addlyrics - take part of text from section 7.3.1 - example: "Girls and boys come out to play" and/or - example: "Thus saith the Lord" (Handel's Messiah) (hardly a song!) * Aligning lyrics to a melody - introduce \lyricmode, melismata, extenders, hyphens, use of slurs - example: "Away in a manger" First 4 bars and/or - example: first 3 bars of Purcell's "Dido's Lament" * Setting duets - two voices, introduce \lyricsto - example of divisi on single staff: taken from Handel's "O Lovely Peace" (Let fleecy flocks ..) * Multiple syllables on a single note - use of quotes, tilde and underscore - example of Italian: Rossini's "Largo al factotem" and/or - example of recit: Gilbert & Sullivan's "Hold monsters" (Pirates or Penzance) and/or - example of a chant: versicle "O Lord, show thy mercy upon us" * Lyrics to multiple staves - how to write lyrics for SATB - example: three bars of "Behold the Lamb of God" (Handel's Messiah) * Languages other than English - use of unicode - example: ????? .. (Onégin's Aria) * Lyrics separate from the music - example: a hymn with verses below the music * A lead sheet - introduce \chordmode and \chords - examples from popular music (but what about copyright? use nursery rhymes?) Trevor _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list lilypond-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
