| 1 | |
| 2 | New Mup Features |
| 3 | |
| 4 | 1. New Mup Features |
| 5 | |
| 6 | 1.1 New Features in Mup Version 5.3 |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Version 5.3 is primarily focused on ease of use |
| 9 | enhancements. The largest item is the additional of a |
| 10 | companion program, called Mupmate, that provides an |
| 11 | interface for editing, displaying, and playing Mup files |
| 12 | with the kinds of menus and windows that many people are |
| 13 | used to. The Help menu will take you right to the Mup User's |
| 14 | Guide, which has also had improvements made. If you are a |
| 15 | user who prefers the command line interface that Mup has |
| 16 | always had, don't worry; we like to use that too, and have |
| 17 | no intention of dropping support for it. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Windows users now only need to download a single file and |
| 20 | execute it to install everything (although you still need to |
| 21 | get and install GSview and Ghostscript separately, if you |
| 22 | want to use that for viewing the PostScript files). Other |
| 23 | users can also just download a single file that contains |
| 24 | both program and documentation. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Other new features in 5.3 include: |
| 27 | |
| 28 | - Error and warning messages have been enhanced to show |
| 29 | you the text of the line of input where the problem was |
| 30 | found. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | - There is a new pagesize parameter that lets you specify |
| 33 | paper size by common names like letter or a4, as an |
| 34 | alternate to specifying pageheight and pagewidth in |
| 35 | inches or cm. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | - There is a new vcombine parameter, that lets you enter |
| 38 | notes on separate voices, yet have them printed on a |
| 39 | common stem when possible. Typical uses are: |
| 40 | |
| 41 | - To have separate MIDI tracks for different voices, |
| 42 | yet have the voices printed on common stems. |
| 43 | |
| 44 | - For a style of printing where a single stem is |
| 45 | used for the two voices on a staff except when the |
| 46 | voices share a common note, when two opposing |
| 47 | stems are printed. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | - The scorepad parameter now accepts an optional maximum |
| 50 | value, in addition to the minimum value. |
| 51 | |
| 52 | 1.2 New Features in Mup Version 5.2 |
| 53 | |
| 54 | - There is now a generalized 'if' clause' that is much |
| 55 | more flexible and powerful than the simple ifdef and |
| 56 | ifndef. These provide capabilities somewhat similar to |
| 57 | the preprocessors for the C and C++ languages. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | - Complicated time signatures are now supported. This |
| 60 | includes a numerator with two or more numbers added |
| 61 | together, like 3+4 / 4, or two or more fractions added |
| 62 | together, like 3/4 + 3/8. Alternating time signatures, |
| 63 | such as when a piece continuously switches between 3/4 |
| 64 | and 6/8, are also supported. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | - The beamstyle and timeunit parameter values associated |
| 67 | with a time signature are now remembered, so that if |
| 68 | you later change back to the same time signature, you |
| 69 | don't have to also set the beamstyle and timeunit at |
| 70 | the same time; the value used previously for that time |
| 71 | signature will be restored automatically. (Note that |
| 72 | if you have existing Mup files that rely on the old |
| 73 | behavior, they may need small modifications, but that |
| 74 | should be rare.) |
| 75 | |
| 76 | - It is now possible to force stem direction on voices 1 |
| 77 | and 2 even when the other voice is not space. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | - Improvements have been made to how the angle for beams |
| 80 | is calculated. The "best" angle for a beam is |
| 81 | sometimes somewhat subjective, but in general, these |
| 82 | changes will result in more cases where beams are |
| 83 | horizontal or less sloped, |
| 84 | |
| 85 | - There are also additional ways you can control beams: |
| 86 | A new slope interchord attribute lets you force a |
| 87 | specific slope. The new stemshorten parameter lets you |
| 88 | determine how much a chord's stem is allowed to be |
| 89 | shortened when it is beamed. And the existing len |
| 90 | chord attribute can now be set for just one end of a |
| 91 | beamed set of chords as an alternative to setting it at |
| 92 | both ends. |
| 93 | |
| 94 | - The HTML version of the Mup User's Guide now includes |
| 95 | 'next page' and 'previous page' links on each page. |
| 96 | |
| 97 | 1.3 New Features in Mup Version 5.1 |
| 98 | |
| 99 | - You may specify a time value that is the summation of |
| 100 | several time values. This can be used to obtain |
| 101 | beaming, lyrics, or tuplets with durations that cannot |
| 102 | be represented with a single time value, like a half |
| 103 | note plus an eighth note. It also gives an alternate |
| 104 | way to specify chord ties. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | - Cross-staff stems are now supported. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | - You can now explicitly specify a direction of "up" on |
| 109 | rolls to get an upward arrow drawn at the top of the |
| 110 | roll. (Before, only a downward roll would get an |
| 111 | arrow.) |
| 112 | |
| 113 | - Mup will now allow you to beam across spaces as well as |
| 114 | rests. |
| 115 | |
| 116 | - There is a new restsymmult parameter. Setting it to y |
| 117 | will cause Mup to use an alternate style for multirests |
| 118 | of eight measures or less, which uses rest symbols. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | - There is a new string sequence that will be replaced by |
| 121 | the page number of the last page. This may useful to |
| 122 | be able to automatically get output like "Page 2 of 4 |
| 123 | pages." |
| 124 | |
| 125 | - There is a new option for printing of tuplet numbers, |
| 126 | where the number is always printed, but the bracket is |
| 127 | never printed. |
| 128 | |
| 129 | - If you want to have the same lyrics above some staffs |
| 130 | and below others, it is now possible to specify that on |
| 131 | a single input line, rather than requiring two. |
| 132 | |
| 133 | - Improvements have been made to how voice 3 is placed, |
| 134 | which will often eliminate the need to manually specify |
| 135 | a horizontal offset. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | 1.4 New Features in Mup Version 5.0 |
| 138 | |
| 139 | - Mup now supports the shaped notes often used in "Sacred |
| 140 | Harp" music, also sometimes called "fasola" notation. |
| 141 | New note head characters are available for the most |
| 142 | common system of 4 shapes, as well as a system with 7 |
| 143 | shapes. As part of this feature, there is a new |
| 144 | headshape context and a new noteheads parameter that |
| 145 | lets you define what shapes will be used for notes. |
| 146 | |
| 147 | - Note head shapes can also be specified on specific |
| 148 | chords or a specific note within a chord. This makes |
| 149 | it possible to do things like have both normal and X- |
| 150 | shaped notes on the same stem. |
| 151 | |
| 152 | - There are new "slash" note heads, often used to |
| 153 | indicate repeated chords, and a new "blankhead" note |
| 154 | head, that can be used if you just want a stem without |
| 155 | any note head. |
| 156 | |
| 157 | - There is a new stemlen parameter that lets you set the |
| 158 | default stem length. A common use for this would be to |
| 159 | set this parameter to 0.0, to not have any stems at all |
| 160 | (sometimes used for chant). |
| 161 | |
| 162 | - It is now possible to change the clef, defoct, and |
| 163 | release parameters in the middle of a measure. |
| 164 | |
| 165 | - You can now include raw PostScript in the input to the |
| 166 | copied to the output. This could be used, for example, |
| 167 | to include a picture or logo with your music. |
| 168 | |
| 169 | - In addition to the old way of specifying key signature, |
| 170 | by stating the number of sharps or flats, it is now |
| 171 | possible to specify the key by name, as in "a major" or |
| 172 | "c# minor." |
| 173 | |
| 174 | - There is a new swingunit parameter. Some styles of |
| 175 | music are often written with straight eighth notes or |
| 176 | dotted-eighth-sixteeen notations, but where the players |
| 177 | "know" that the composer really wants the music played |
| 178 | with the first note in each pair twice as long as the |
| 179 | second, as if it were a quarter-eighth triplet. This |
| 180 | parameter will make Mup's MIDI output automatically |
| 181 | follow that kind of performance convention. |
| 182 | |
| 183 | - It is possible to set the rehearsal letter or number to |
| 184 | a specific value, to override the automatic |
| 185 | incrementing. This might be especially useful when |
| 186 | there are multiple songs or movements in a single Mup |
| 187 | file. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | 1.5 New Features in Mup Version 4.6 |
| 190 | |
| 191 | - There are new top, bottom, top2, and bottom2 contexts |
| 192 | that let you define a second layer of headers and |
| 193 | footers. These new contexts can be changed multiple |
| 194 | times in a file, so you can use different headings and |
| 195 | footing for different songs or movements within a file. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | - There is a new "block" context, that lets you place |
| 198 | blocks of text in your musical scores. |
| 199 | |
| 200 | - There is a new paragraph command for printing long |
| 201 | sections of text that you would like to have |
| 202 | automatically wrapped around unto as many lines as |
| 203 | needed. The right margin can be justified or ragged. |
| 204 | |
| 205 | - For Linux, in addition to being available in tar.gz |
| 206 | format, Mup files are now available in rpm package |
| 207 | format, for very quick-and-easy installation. The MS- |
| 208 | DOS/Windows Mup files are now available as self- |
| 209 | extracting zip files, so you don't need to have an |
| 210 | unzip program to unpack them. |
| 211 | |
| 212 | - The visible parameter now accepts a value of |
| 213 | "whereused." With this value, when a staff has no |
| 214 | notes on an entire score, that staff is not printed. |
| 215 | This might be used, for example, to save paper on an |
| 216 | orchestral score by only printing staffs for |
| 217 | instruments when they are actually playing. |
| 218 | |
| 219 | - There are new parameters measnumfont, |
| 220 | measnumfontfamily, and measnumsize, to control the |
| 221 | appearance of automatic measure numbers. |
| 222 | |
| 223 | - It is now possible to unset parameters in voice or |
| 224 | staff context, to make them revert to their values in |
| 225 | the next more general context where they are set (staff |
| 226 | or score). |
| 227 | |
| 228 | - When a repeatstart gets moved to the beginning of a |
| 229 | score, sometimes you'd like the bar line at the end of |
| 230 | the previous score to be a double bar rather than |
| 231 | single bar. It is now possible to specify that. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | - There is a new -F option that is like the -f option, |
| 234 | except it derives the name of the output file based on |
| 235 | the name of the input file, rather than you needing to |
| 236 | specify an output file name. |
| 237 | |
| 238 | - The Mup input file name is given in the PostScript |
| 239 | output file, so that PostScript viewer programs like gv |
| 240 | can use it in their window title. |
| 241 | |
| 242 | - There is now a majordomo mailing list available for |
| 243 | registered Mup users. This is a forum for talking with |
| 244 | other Mup users, to discuss questions and tips on using |
| 245 | Mup. |
| 246 | |
| 247 | 1.6 New Features in Mup Version 4.5 |
| 248 | |
| 249 | - There is a new -x option that lets you extract a |
| 250 | portion of a song. This can be especially useful for |
| 251 | MIDI, where you might want to listen to just a few |
| 252 | measures in the middle or end of a piece. But it also |
| 253 | works in printing mode, so you can print just an |
| 254 | excerpt of a piece. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | - It is now possible to specify "subbeams," both with |
| 257 | custom beaming and via the beamstyle parameter. This |
| 258 | can be used when there are a lot of very short notes, |
| 259 | and you want to subdivide the beam groupings. |
| 260 | |
| 261 | - The drawing of phrase marks, ties, and slurs has been |
| 262 | re-implemented to produce more aesthetically pleasing |
| 263 | curves. |
| 264 | |
| 265 | - There is a new special character, called \(space), |
| 266 | which is printed like a normal space on output, but |
| 267 | which is not treated like a space when Mup is looking |
| 268 | for word or syllable boundaries. The most common use |
| 269 | for this would probably be on chant lyrics, where you |
| 270 | want several words to be sung to the same note. It |
| 271 | might also be useful in cases where Mup would normally |
| 272 | split a long string at a word boundary to avoid running |
| 273 | off the edge of a page, but for some reason you want to |
| 274 | prevent that splitting. |
| 275 | |
| 276 | - It is possible to print a text string centered above a |
| 277 | line. This is likely to be the most useful for |
| 278 | printing "gliss." by a wavy line for a glissando, but |
| 279 | it can be used on any kind of line. |
| 280 | |
| 281 | - There are some new user-donated files, including a |
| 282 | Windows installer, and Mup syntax files for nedit and |
| 283 | vim. |
| 284 | |
| 285 | 1.7 New Features in Mup Version 4.4 |
| 286 | |
| 287 | - Many of the changes in this release were to make Mup |
| 288 | conform more closely with established guidelines or |
| 289 | rules for musical notation. This mainly involved small |
| 290 | adjustments to cosmetic details, like how accidentals |
| 291 | and dots are placed. For mid-score clef changes, the |
| 292 | clef is now placed before the barline, as it should be, |
| 293 | rather than after. There is also an improved algorithm |
| 294 | for determining where to end the underscores on lyrics. |
| 295 | |
| 296 | - The use of labels, both labels associated with |
| 297 | individual staffs and labels associated with staffs |
| 298 | grouped by braces or brackets, has been made more |
| 299 | flexible. It used to be that the "label" was only used |
| 300 | on the very first score, with "label2" used on all |
| 301 | subsequent scores. Thus resetting label after the |
| 302 | beginning really had no effect. Now, however, whenever |
| 303 | a new label is specified, that label will be used for |
| 304 | the next score, going back to label2 for subsequent |
| 305 | scores. As an example, this might be useful if staff 1 |
| 306 | was used for just soprano at the beginning of the song, |
| 307 | so you wanted label="Soprano" and label2="S" for that |
| 308 | portion, but later soprano and alto share the staff, so |
| 309 | you would like label="Soprano/alto" to clearly point |
| 310 | out the change, but then revert to just "SA" on |
| 311 | subsequent staffs, to conserve space. |
| 312 | |
| 313 | - You can specify a bulge direction for note ties, note |
| 314 | slurs, chord ties, and chord slurs, if you wish to |
| 315 | override Mup's choice of direction. |
| 316 | |
| 317 | - You can now use \s(PV) or \s(previous) in a text string |
| 318 | to return to the previous size. |
| 319 | |
| 320 | - The 8treble clef is now supported. This is like the |
| 321 | treble8 clef, except the 8 is printed above the G clef |
| 322 | rather than below it, to show notes that sound an |
| 323 | octave <I>higher</I> than a normal treble clef. |
| 324 | |
| 325 | - Phrase marks can now have an optional line type |
| 326 | modifier of dotted or dashed. |
| 327 | |
| 328 | 1.8 New Features in Mup Version 4.3 |
| 329 | |
| 330 | - There is a new rehstyle parameter that controls whether |
| 331 | rehearsal marks are boxed, circled, or plain. |
| 332 | |
| 333 | - It is no longer necessary to specify verse numbers for |
| 334 | lyrics (unless you want to skip a verse). If not |
| 335 | specified, each succeeding set of lyrics for a given |
| 336 | staff and place defaults to having a verse number one |
| 337 | more than the previous verse. |
| 338 | |
| 339 | - There is a new way to force the position of individual |
| 340 | lyrics syllables that is particularly useful for |
| 341 | ensuring that verse numbers or the beginnings of poetic |
| 342 | lines align consistently on all verses. |
| 343 | |
| 344 | - There are new -E and -C options that let you see how |
| 345 | macros expand, which can help you in debugging very |
| 346 | complex macros. |
| 347 | |
| 348 | - There is a new staffpad parameter, and the value of the |
| 349 | scorepad parameter can now be negative. Using negative |
| 350 | values for these can let you jam staffs or scores |
| 351 | closer together in cases where Mup is spacing them |
| 352 | wider apart than is really necessary. |
| 353 | |
| 354 | - It is now possible to have more than one voice on |
| 355 | tablature staffs just like on non-tablature. |
| 356 | |
| 357 | - It is now possible to temporarily override margins on a |
| 358 | particular score. This can let you indent one score |
| 359 | differently than the others, or end a piece with a |
| 360 | shorter-than-normal score. |
| 361 | |
| 362 | - There is now an "alt pedstar" value for the pedstyle |
| 363 | parameter This is like the "pedstar" value except that |
| 364 | when there is a pedal "bounce," only a "Ped" is |
| 365 | printed, rather than a "* Ped." |
| 366 | |
| 367 | - There is a new user-donated program called Winmup which |
| 368 | provides a Windows front-end for the MS-DOS version of |
| 369 | Mup. The Visual Basic source code for Winmup is also |
| 370 | available. |
| 371 | |
| 372 | - Several miscellaneous changes were made to improve the |
| 373 | quality of printed output and to improve portability. |
| 374 | Current Mup users may find the layout of some songs may |
| 375 | change somewhat when they upgrade. |
| 376 | |
| 377 | 1.9 New Features in Mup Version 4.2 |
| 378 | |
| 379 | - A third voice per staff is now supported. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | - It is now possible to adjust the horizontal placement |
| 382 | of notes. |
| 383 | |
| 384 | - It is now possible to beam across rests. |
| 385 | |
| 386 | - The optional automatic measure numbers at the |
| 387 | beginnings of scores are now printed in a larger size. |
| 388 | |
| 389 | - The chord-at-a-time input style has been made more |
| 390 | versatile. Previously, if a voice was mentioned in a |
| 391 | pattern, that voice could not be used for voice-at-a- |
| 392 | time input style in that measure, even if the pattern |
| 393 | was never actually used. Now the restriction only |
| 394 | applies if the pattern is actually used. |
| 395 | |
| 396 | - Strings can be printed enclosed in a circle or elipse. |
| 397 | |
| 398 | - There is a new beamslope parameter that controls the |
| 399 | maximum tilt for beams. |
| 400 | |
| 401 | - There is a new pad parameter that provides an |
| 402 | additional way to control how close together note |
| 403 | groups are placed horizontally. |
| 404 | |
| 405 | - There is a new MIDI "port" keyword. This can let you |
| 406 | assign different tracks to different ports on multi- |
| 407 | port MIDI devices, allowing for more than 16 channels. |
| 408 | |
| 409 | - The minimum values for the scoresep and staffsep |
| 410 | parameters can now be set as low as 6, rather than the |
| 411 | previous minimum of 9. |
| 412 | |
| 413 | 1.10 New Features in Mup Version 4.1 |
| 414 | |
| 415 | - Guitar grids can now be printed, either where they are |
| 416 | used in the music, or summarized at the end of a song. |
| 417 | There is also a library of pre-defined grids that you |
| 418 | can "include" in your music. |
| 419 | |
| 420 | - Non-ASCII characters from the Latin-1 alphabet can now |
| 421 | be typed directly into strings in Mup input, rather |
| 422 | than needing to be specified by name. Shortcut names |
| 423 | have also been added for guillemots. |
| 424 | |
| 425 | - The maximum number of staffs has been raised to 40. |
| 426 | |
| 427 | - The stafflines and staffscale parameters can now be |
| 428 | changed at any bar line rather than only at the |
| 429 | beginning of a song. Changing either of them forces a |
| 430 | new score. |
| 431 | |
| 432 | - The staffsep parameter can now be set on a per-staff |
| 433 | basis, rather than just for the score as a whole. |
| 434 | |
| 435 | - There are new parameters that allow you to control the |
| 436 | order that items above, below, and between staffs are |
| 437 | stacked. |
| 438 | |
| 439 | - It is now possible to turn off the automatic numbering |
| 440 | of measure repeats and the printing of multirest |
| 441 | numbers. |
| 442 | |
| 443 | - It is now possible to specify the vertical placement of |
| 444 | a rest character, if you want to override Mup's |
| 445 | automatic placement. |
| 446 | |
| 447 | - It is now possible to concatenate strings. This is |
| 448 | likely to be most useful in macros, but can be used |
| 449 | anywhere strings are used. |
| 450 | |
| 451 | - There is a new firstpage parameter, which is similar to |
| 452 | the -p command line option, for setting the first page |
| 453 | number. |
| 454 | |
| 455 | - There is a new restcombine parameter, which is similar |
| 456 | to the -c command line option, for automatically |
| 457 | combining a sequences of rest measures into multirests. |
| 458 | |
| 459 | - Music symbols that occur inside ital or boldital |
| 460 | strings will automatically be made italics to match the |
| 461 | string. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | - It is possible to vertically center lyrics. This is |
| 464 | useful when there is a refrain with identical words for |
| 465 | all verses, and you only want it printed once. |
| 466 | |
| 467 | - It is now allowed to have a brace to the left of |
| 468 | brackets, to group a subset of staffs. (Previously, |
| 469 | only brackets were allowed to be nested that way.) |
| 470 | |
| 471 | 1.11 New Features in Mup Version 4.0 |
| 472 | |
| 473 | - There is now an alternate input style, in which you can |
| 474 | enter music a chord at a time rather than a voice at a |
| 475 | time. For certain kinds of music, this may be more |
| 476 | natural, and allow you to enter music more quickly. |
| 477 | The previous input style has also been made more |
| 478 | flexible, such that it is now possible to specify that |
| 479 | one line of input will go to voice 1 on one staff or |
| 480 | set of staffs and voice 2 on another staff or set of |
| 481 | staffs. These enhancements make it easier to do things |
| 482 | like input a vocal score and automatically get a piano |
| 483 | reduction. |
| 484 | |
| 485 | - It is now possible to transform a parameter passed to a |
| 486 | macro into a string. If you are a C programmer, you |
| 487 | will find this works somewhat like the # operator of |
| 488 | ANSI C preprocessor macros. If you're not a C |
| 489 | programmer, suffice it to say that this allows Mup |
| 490 | macros to be used to do things they couldn't do before. |
| 491 | |
| 492 | - There is a new special bar type, called restart, that |
| 493 | lets you end the current set of staffs and begin a new |
| 494 | set of staffs on the same line, as is sometimes done |
| 495 | for a short coda. |
| 496 | |
| 497 | - The symbols for accidentals (like # and &) are now |
| 498 | translated to their corresponding musical symbols |
| 499 | everywhere in chords, rather than only if they |
| 500 | immediately follow the letters A through G. You can, |
| 501 | however, turn off this automatic translation for |
| 502 | individual cases where you want them to be treated |
| 503 | literally. |
| 504 | |
| 505 | - Quadruple whole rests are supported. |
| 506 | |
| 507 | - It is possible to force a measure rest to be shown with |
| 508 | a rest symbol other than the whole rest symbol that is |
| 509 | usually used. |
| 510 | |
| 511 | - There is a new addtranspose parameter. This enables you |
| 512 | to use the transpose parameter to change the |
| 513 | transposition on specific staffs for transposing |
| 514 | instruments, then use addtranpose to transpose the |
| 515 | entire score into a new key. |
| 516 | |
| 517 | - There is a new warn parameter which allows you to |
| 518 | control whether warning messages are printed or not. |
| 519 | |
| 520 | - There is a new ontheline parameter. This allows you to |
| 521 | control whether notes on 1-line staffs are printed |
| 522 | above, below, or on the line. |
| 523 | |
| 524 | - The dist, chorddist, and crescdist parameters can be |
| 525 | overridden on individual items. A dist override can |
| 526 | also be specified on rehearsal marks. Each dist |
| 527 | override can also include a modifier to force items to |
| 528 | a specific place, even if they then overwrite other |
| 529 | items that Mup would normally avoid. |
| 530 | |
| 531 | - There is a new -M option which is like the -m option, |
| 532 | except the name of the MIDI file is derived from the |
| 533 | Mup input file name, rather than requiring you to |
| 534 | supply a name. |
| 535 | |
| 536 | - If a given input file name does not exist, Mup will try |
| 537 | appending .mup to the name and attempt to open that |
| 538 | file. |
| 539 | |
| 540 | - It is now possible to specify an uncollapseable space. |
| 541 | This may be useful when drawing "slash" marks and at |
| 542 | other times. |
| 543 | |
| 544 | - There is a new user-donated program called midi2mup, |
| 545 | which is a Perl script that can convert a MIDI file to |
| 546 | Mup input. |
| 547 | |
| 548 | - The uguide gives examples of how to places verses as |
| 549 | text blocks below the scores. |
| 550 | |
| 551 | 1.12 Coming Attractions |
| 552 | |
| 553 | We're always interested in hearing about what features you |
| 554 | would like to see in the next version of Mup. What features |
| 555 | we add will depend on your input, so please send us a note |
| 556 | at support@arkkra.com. |