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Bracketing notes across staffs
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<H2>
Bracketing notes across staffs
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<P>
In keyboard music, sometimes a bracket is drawn to indicate that
notes from two staffs are to be played
with the same hand. The bracket is really just a vertical line with short
horizontal lines at each end. But if you need to make lots of brackets,
a macro with parameters can be very helpful.
<BR><PRE>
score
staffs=2
staff 2
clef=bass
vscheme=2f
// Define a macro to draw a bracket to show that notes on two
// different staffs are to be played with the same hand.
// The parameters are location tags for the top and bottom notes
// to be included in the bracket.
define BRACK(TOP, BOT)
// Draw a short horizontal line 0.5 stepsizes above the top note
line (TOP.w - 2, TOP.n + 0.5) to (TOP.w - 1, TOP.n + 0.5)
// Draw a vertical line from 0.5 stepsizes above the top note
// to 0.5 stepsizes below the bottom note.
// Do all the 'x' coordinates relative to the same note (in
// this case the top), so that if the top and bottom chord happen
// to be different widths, the line will still be vertical.
line (TOP.w - 2, TOP.n + 0.5) to (TOP.w - 2, BOT.s - 0.5)
// Draw short horizontal line just below and left of the bottom note.
line (TOP.w - 2, BOT.s - 0.5) to (TOP.w - 1, BOT.s - 0.5)
@
music
// For each chord that is to get a bracket, add some padding to
// make sure there is enough room, and set a location tag
// on the top and bottom notes.
1: [pad 2] ce =a;[] df =b; [] d =c; [] ce =d;
2: [pad 2] g =e; [] a =f; [] af =g; [] g =h;
2 2: 2cc-; 4g-; cc-;
// Now draw the brackets, using the tags as parameters
BRACK (a, e)
BRACK (b, f)
BRACK (c, g)
BRACK (d, h)
bar
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<IMG SRC="mugex108.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
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<P>
Note that Mup supports
<A HREF="crossst.html">cross-staff stems, which is another way to notate a chord that is split</A>
across two staffs, and may often be a better choice.
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