Typesetting beamed chord notes with PMX is sometimes not completely straightforward, as the following recent mail exchange between Andre Van Ryckeghem and Don Simons shows. There are two issues here: (i) as Don points out in his first letter, "PMX ignores the chord notes when calculating beam positions" , (ii) the result seems to depend on the physical width of the bars (!?) As can be seen from the discussion, these issues are at present not completely settled yet. Therefore, I think it useful to document the discussion here. [ If you want to see quickly what this is all about, look at the two examples, and the PMXS source. ] Tue 2005 Mar 08 /20:59 /ccn ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From avr@pandora.be Fri Mar 04 14:33:57 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:33:22 +0100 From: Andre Van Ryckeghem Reply-To: Typesetting music with TeX To: Typesetting music with TeX Subject: [TeX-music] pmx - exotic beams Hi all, Is it possible to have the beams right without using Musixtex in the following example? Only the last bar is satisfying in my opinion. The other bars show what is happening when altering the hight and the slope of the beam. Also changing the width of the bar alters the behavior of the slope. Thanks for helping Andre =============== 1 1 3 8 3 8 0 2 1 1 20 .0 b ./ \\let\tblsav\tbl\ %1 without precautions [u e8- D"1" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %2 getting a - slope on the beam -> bad ending Cb [u+0-7 e8- D"2" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %3 making the beam higher ends it OK (not nice) Cb [u+5-7 e8- D"3" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %4 trying low beam, notes are messed up Cb [l+10 e8- D"4 - see the notes"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %5 using brute force in Musixtex Cb [u-2-6 e8- D"4 - That's OK"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb \def\tbl#1{\let\tbl\tblsav\roff{\tbl{#1}}}\ b+ ze- zd ] | / ============ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From dsimons@adelphia.net Fri Mar 04 16:15:11 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:16:14 -0800 From: Don Simons Reply-To: Typesetting music with TeX To: Typesetting music with TeX Subject: RE: [TeX-music] pmx - exotic beams Andre wrote > Is it possible to have the beams right without using Musixtex in the > following example? >... Congratulations to Andre for discovering this example. I think it's the first time anyone has come up with this problem. PMX ignores the chord notes when calculating beam positions. So I tried fiddling with the order of notes in each chord, and succeeded in getting close to what Andre wanted (see bar 3). But if you only lower the beam by one unit to get even closer, it falls apart. Also, this is unsatisfying in that it was pure trial and error. Maybe PMX needs a "beam termination toggle" option on the "]" that closes the beam? --Don Simons =============== 1 1 3 8 3 8 0 2 1 1 20 .0 b ./ \\let\tblsav\tbl\ %1 without precautions [u e8- D"1" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %2 getting a - slope on the beam -> bad ending Cb [u+0-7 e8- D"2" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %3 making the beam higher ends it OK if you also shuffle order Cb [u+4-7 e82 D"3 - Don's try" ze+ Ct b+ zd ze d ze zb+ ] | %4 trying low beam, notes are messed up Cb [l+10 e83 D"4 - see the notes"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %5 using brute force in Musixtex Cb [u-2-6 e8- D"4 - That's OK"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb \def\tbl#1{\let\tbl\tblsav\roff{\tbl{#1}}}\ b+ ze- zd ] | / > ============ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From avr@pandora.be Fri Mar 04 16:49:58 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:49:31 +0100 From: Andre Van Ryckeghem Reply-To: Typesetting music with TeX To: Typesetting music with TeX Subject: Re: [TeX-music] pmx - exotic beams Thanks for looking at it, Don. The problem with Don's solution, i think, is that the beam must end high enough. The beams can only be corrected when the layout is fixed. >Maybe PMX needs a "beam termination >toggle" option on the "]" that closes the beam? A long beamed sequence with - slope must start very high, because it must end above an octave of the highest note in the last chord. This is demonstrated in an example with larger bars ( if ie.1 1 20 .0 is replaced by 1 2 20 .0) Do you mean by 'toggle' adding an option to ']' (someting as ']j' ) for doing a \roff ? Andre ============ 1 1 3 8 3 8 0 2 1 2 20 .0 b ./ \\let\tblsav\tbl\ %1 without precautions [u e8- D"1" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %2 getting a - slope on the beam -> bad ending Cb [u+0-7 e8- D"2" ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %3 making the beam higher ends it OK if you also shuffle order Cb [u+4-7 e82 D"3 - Don's try" ze+ Ct b+ zd ze d ze zb+ ] | %4 trying low beam, notes are messed up Cb [l+10 e83 D"4 - see the notes"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb b+ ze- zd ] | %5 using brute force in Musixtex Cb [u-2-6 e8- D"4 - That's OK"-3 ze- Ct e++ zd zb \def\tbl#1{\let\tbl\tblsav\roff{\tbl{#1}}}\ b+ ze- zd ] | / ========= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From dsimons@adelphia.net Fri Mar 04 17:06:10 2005 Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 08:07:16 -0800 From: Don Simons Reply-To: Typesetting music with TeX To: Typesetting music with TeX Subject: RE: [TeX-music] pmx - exotic beams I wrote > >Maybe PMX needs a "beam termination > >toggle" option on the "]" that closes the beam? and Andre wrote > Do you mean by 'toggle' adding an option to ']' (someting as ']j' ) for > doing a \roff ? I was thinking of replacing \tbl with \tbu and vice versa, but maybe the same thing could be accomplished with \roff and \loff. --Don -----------------------------------------------------------------------