Hi all,
As a long time user of lilypond, I firstly wish to say thank you to everyone
who has developed and continues to develop Lilypond. It is brilliant, and I
tell every musician I know to try it.
Until this point, I've not found anything I cannot do on Lilypond, however when
I found out how to add dialogue (particularly long passages of dialogue) over
music, I hit a snag. This is because the layout has to be programmed manually,
and this is to say the least, a bit of a pain. In my case, the dialogue needs
to be output in multiple pdf files, and I would have to manually lay out the
dialogue for each file. In addition, if I later wish to change the dialogue,
which will likely happen as part of the creative process, I will potentially
have to reprogram the layout again for each file. This is therefore the first
time I am considering adding text to my lilypond produced pdfs using an
alternative software, which too has drawbacks.
I am not a natural coder, however I am hoping that sharing how I need to
display features like dialogue with a group of people who can code and develop
Lilypond, may be useful, and I am hoping that sharing some ideas regarding how
it may work may also be useful.
Firstly, the current recommendation as stated in section 2.1.6 of the notation
reference manual, is to enter the dialogue into lyricmode, which enables the
user to specify how long the text should be in relation to the staff in a way
that cannot be done outside of lyricmode. My thinking is that it may be better
if a lilypond user could do this using a text markup within the music. For
example, they could produce something like this:
...R1*2^\markup {This is my ridiculously long text...}1*15
a2 b2 ...
If this was possible, it would make it easier for users to add dialogue over
rests, which in the context of opera and stage musicals, would be a common
occurrence. This would also make it simpler to keep dialogue above the stave
and lyrics below the stave, which is the typical layout.
Secondly, an automated system would be extremely useful for breaks in text
markups. This would make it simpler if a user wanted to tweak the dialogue,
and/or include the dialogue in multiple files. My thinking is that in order to
do this, Lilypond would need to follow this process:
Check that the length of the text markup is equal to or less than the length of
music between the start of the markup and end of the music. In other words, if
the following example was written, it would not meet the condition and
therefore be impossible to render the text:
...R1*2^\markup {"This is my ridiculously long text..."}1*15
a2 b2 \bar "|."
Figure out which of these if rendered separately is shortest in length: the
text itself, or the music within the duration of the markup. Then stretch the
shortest of these by increasing the spacing between words/notes until they are
both aligned.
Break the text as in line with the staff as possible. This would mean breaking
where a space is present in the text, then adjust spacing in each line of the
staff and/or text markup to realign them.
Whether this is achievable or worth the effort, I don't know, but my thinking
is that other lilypond users may want to use lilypond for dialogue, and there
may be other lengthy text markups where this sort of functionality may be
useful.
Regards,
James--
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