<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>
Chord-at-a-time input style
</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<P>
<A HREF="tuplets.html"><-- previous page</A>
<A HREF="index.html">Table of Contents</A> <A HREF="mupindex.html">Index</A> <A HREF="bars.html">next page --></A>
</P>
<H2>
Chord-at-a-time input style
</H2>
<P>
There is an alternate input style, in which you enter music
a chord at a time, rather than a voice at a time. In this style, the
specification before the colon gives one or more patterns that tells
how to map notes to staffs and voices.
</P>
<P>
Suppose you want to print some
music in a style which is common for many traditional hymns:
it is to be printed on two staffs, each staff will always have
exactly two notes, and the rhythm is exactly the same for all voices.
With chord at a time input, you specify, for each note in a chord,
which staff and voice to map that note. Since there are four notes in
each chord, there will be four mappings listed. You want the bottom
two notes to get mapped to staff 2, and the top two notes to staff 1.
This is shown as
<BR><PRE>
// Bass to staff 2 voice 1
// | Tenor to staff 2 voice 1
// | | Alto to staff 1 voice 1
// | | | Soprano to staff 1 voice 1
[ 2 1; 2 1; 1 1; 1 1 ]
</PRE><BR>
Each item in the semicolon-separated list tells how to map one note.
So the first note in each chord will get mapped to staff 2 voice 1.
The second note in each chord will also get mapped to staff 2 voice 1.
The third and fourth notes will get mapped to staff 1 voice 1.
</P>
<P>
Since voice 1 is, as always, the default, this could be written more
compactly as just:
<BR><PRE>
[ 2; 2; 1; 1 ]
</PRE><BR>
If you wanted to input notes from top to bottom instead
(in soprano-alto-tenor-bass order, rather than bass-tenor-alto-soprano order),
you could use:
<BR><PRE>
// Soprano
// Alto
// Tenor
// Bass
[ 1; 1; 2; 2 ]
</PRE><BR>
If you wanted to use two separate voices on each staff (going
back to bottom-to-top order), you could specify:
<BR><PRE>
// Bass to staff 2 voice 2
// | Tenor to staff 2 voice 1
// | | Alto to staff 1 voice 2
// | | | Soprano to staff 1 voice 1
[ 2 2; 2 1; 1 2; 1 1 ]
</PRE><BR>
</P>
<P>
Now let's put these mappings with music data.
<BR><PRE>
score
staffs=2
vscheme=2f
staff 2
clef=bass
music
[ 2; 2; 1; 1 ] : facf;dgfb;2cgec+;
bar
[ 1 1; 1 2; 2 1; 2 2 ] : fcaf;bfgd;2c+egc;
bar
</PRE><BR>
<IMG SRC="mugex32.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
In the first measure, the first two notes listed in each chord are mapped
to staff 2, voice 1, while the third and fourth notes listed in each chord
are mapped to staff 1 voice 1. In the second measure, two voices are
used and notes are entered in descending order. Note that each note takes
on the correct default octave for whichever staff it is mapped to.
</P>
<P>
It is also possible to use rests or spaces for some of the voices.
<BR><PRE>
score
key=3&
vscheme=2f
music
[ 1 2; 1 1 ]: rb; eg; ca; gr;
bar
[ 1 2; 1 1 ]: er; sr; 8sf; se; 4sg;
bar
</PRE><BR>
<IMG SRC="mugex33.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
</P>
<P>
Chord attributes and interchord attributes (like tie, slur, xnote,
len, and alt) can be specified just like
for voice-at-a-time input. Note attributes (like ? and ~) apply to
the note wherever it gets mapped, and items that apply to the chord as
a whole will be applied to all the notes.
<BR><PRE>
[1 2; 1 1] : [cue; xnote; len 6] b-e; [with > ] ce& slur; dg~; c?g;
</PRE><BR>
<IMG SRC="mugex34.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
</P>
<P>
It is possible to map a note to more than one place by using ranges,
and/or by giving a list of staffs and voices,
separated by ampersands. This may be useful,
for example, if several voices are in unison.
In the next example, the first note in each chord will be mapped to voice
1 of staffs 1 through 3, as well as to voice 2 of staff 1, while the
second note in each chord will be mapped to voice 2 of staffs 2 and 3.
<BR><PRE>
[ 1-3 1 & 1 2; 2-3 2 ] : ec;fd;ge;af;
</PRE><BR>
<IMG SRC="mugex35.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
</P>
<P>
It is also possible to specify more than one bracketed mapping.
Each must include a mapping for a different number of notes.
So, for example, if some chords in a measure have two notes and
others have three, you can define two maps: one for two notes,
and one for three. The example below demonstrates placing alto
and soprano as two voices on one staff, but sometimes the alto
part splits.
<BR><PRE>
// For chords with two notes,
// map the first to staff 1 voice 2 (alto),
// and the second to staff 1 voice 1 (soprano).
// For chords with three notes,
// map the first two notes to staff 1 voice 2
// (first and second alto part),
// and the third to staff 1 voice 1 (soprano).
[ 1 2; 1 1 ] [ 1 2; 1 2; 1 1 ]: cec+;df;eg;a-fc+;
</PRE><BR>
<IMG SRC="mugex36.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
If mappings of different chords need to vary by something other than
the number of notes in the chord, then you will have to use
the voice-at-a-time input style.
</P>
<P>
Since the mapping specifications can get rather complex,
and they may be used many times during a song,
it is usually best to define
<A HREF="macros.html">macros</A>
for them, and possibly even put the macro definitions in
<A HREF="include.html">an "include" file.</A>
</P>
<P>
You can use the different input styles in different measures of a single
song, and use different mappings in different measures.
You can even mix the two input styles within a measure,
but a given staff/voice
can only appear on one line of input per measure. So, for example,
you could choose to input staffs 1 and 2 of a song in chord-at-a-time
input style, and staff 3 in voice-at-a-time style.
The
<A HREF="param.html#inputdir">noteinputdir parameter</A>
is ignored on chord-at-a-time input.
</P>
<HR><P>
<A HREF="tuplets.html"><-- previous page</A> <A HREF="index.html">Table of Contents</A> <A HREF="mupindex.html">Index</A> <A HREF="bars.html">next page --></A>
</P>
</BODY></HTML>
