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16 <A NAME="attrib">There are optional attributes that are associated with an entire chord</A>
17 rather than an individual note. These are put inside square brackets
18 before the list of notes and the time value.
19 There are several classes of information:
22 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#chstyle">chord style (grace, cue, diam, or xnote)</A>
24 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#shaped">head shape</A>
26 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#withlist">symbols to be printed with a chord</A>
28 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#slashes">slashes</A>
30 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#stemdir">stem direction</A>
32 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#stemlen">stem length</A>
34 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#pad">padding</A>
36 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#ctag">chord location tag</A>
38 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#hoffset">horizontal offset</A>
40 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#dist">rest distance</A>
44 Each class of information is
45 separated from the other by a semicolon. All classes are optional, and can
52 <A NAME="chstyle">Several chord styles can be specified.</A>
53 <A NAME="cue">Grace note chords are designated by the word "grace," or cue note chords by "cue."</A>
54 Grace notes can be specified as any undotted time value of eighth note or
55 shorter, but are treated as taking no time. The time value given is merely used
56 to specify how many flags or beams to put on the grace note.
57 You can also specify a quarter note grace note, which will be printed as a
58 small, stemless note, as is used to show
59 <A HREF="tabstaff.html#prebend">a "prebend" in guitar music.</A>
60 (Actually, you can force a stem if you want, by specifying a
61 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#stemlen">len, as is described later.)</A>
62 Cue notes have time like regular notes, but they are printed smaller.
63 If there are several grace notes in a row, they will be beamed automatically.
64 However, you cannot mix quarter (stemless) grace notes with shorter ones.
65 Cue notes follow the same beaming rules as regular notes.
68 It is also possible to specify "diam," or "xnote."
69 In the case of "diam," the chords will be drawn with diamond-shaped notes,
70 while with "xnote," the chords will be
71 drawn with X-shaped notes. A diamond shaped
72 note head will be used for xnotes that are half note or longer.
73 Here are some examples:
88 If you want to have the
89 <A NAME="shaped">note heads in a chord</A>
90 use a shape other than the
91 normal shapes, you use hs followed by the name of the head shape in quotes.
93 <A HREF="shaped.html">section on shaped notes,</A>
94 so only the basics are covered here. The xnote and diam
95 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#chstyle">described above</A>
96 are really just shorthands for two common head shapes.
97 The method using hs lets you use many other note head styles,
98 such as a slash, or triangle.
100 1: [hs "righttri"]cf; [hs "slash"]fa;
105 <A HREF="shaped.html">section on shaped notes</A>
106 lists all the builtin head shape names,
107 and explains how you can define your own.
110 Symbols to be printed with a chord
113 <A NAME="withlist">It is possible to specify one or more musical symbols or text strings to be printed with a chord.</A>
114 This is typically used for
115 things like staccato and accent marks. The word "with"
116 is followed by one or more things to print. If there are more than one, they
117 are separated by commas. They will be printed outwards from the notes in
119 The "with" list is only allowed on note groups, not rests.
120 The list can include symbols from the following table:
123 <TD><B>Symbol</B></TD> <TD><B>Meaning</B></TD>
126 <TD><TT>.</TT></TD> <TD>staccato</TD>
129 <TD><TT>-</TT></TD> <TD>legato</TD>
132 <TD><TT>></TT></TD> <TD>accent</TD>
135 <TD><TT>^</TT></TD> <TD>accent</TD>
141 <A HREF="textstr.html">A quoted string</A>
142 can also be specified (e.g., "ff", "adagio", etc.).
143 This will be printed in the font and size specified by the
144 <A HREF="param.html#fontfam">"fontfamily,"</A>
145 <A HREF="param.html#font">"font,"</A>
147 <A HREF="param.html#size">"size"</A>
148 parameters. Any of the
149 <A HREF="textstr.html#symlist">special music characters can be printed by using the usual convention,</A>
150 e.g., \(ferm) for a fermata.
151 (This is described in a
152 <A HREF="textstr.html">later section.)</A>
153 However, it is usually preferable to use the printing of
154 <A HREF="textmark.html">text strings relative to beats.</A>
157 Here are some examples:
160 [with ^, "\(ferm)"]
161 [with "sfz"; cue]
165 If the symbols acc_hat, ferm, or wedge are used by themselves in a "with"
166 list item, they are handled specially. If the stem direction is such that
167 the upside down versions of these characters should be used, the upside down
168 version will be used.
174 <A NAME="slashes">Diagonal lines to be drawn through the stem of the group</A>
175 can be specified using
179 where <I>N</I> is the number of slashes to draw. In the case of
180 <A HREF="chrdattr.html#chstyle">grace notes,</A>
181 <I>N</I> can only be 1, which will produce a grace note with a slash through it.
182 In the case of other notes, <I>N</I> can be 1 or greater, and is used to
183 specify tremolo or repetition of the note group. Examples:
193 The chord stem direction can be specified as "up" or "down".
194 <A NAME="stemdir">Normally Mup chooses the stem direction, but once in a while you</A>
195 may want to override its choice. There are some restrictions.
196 You cannot specify a direction on grace notes. All chords beamed
197 together and the pair of chords in an
198 <A HREF="ichdattr.html#alt">alternation pair</A>
200 must have the same stem direction.
208 For voice 3, stem direction works a little differently. By default, the
209 stem direction for voice 3 is up,
210 but for voice 3 on any given staff, when you specify a stem
211 direction, that direction will remain in effect until explicitly changed.
212 Thus, for example, if you want all voice 3 stems on a given staff
214 be down, you only need to specify "[down]" on the first chord.
220 <A NAME="stemlen">Normally, Mup sets stem lengths as appropriate, but sometimes you might</A>
221 want to make a stem longer or shorter than normal. This is done with
222 the keyword "len" followed by a length in stepsizes.
230 You cannot specify stem length on chords inside of beams.
231 The len can be set to 0 to produce a note head with no stem at all.
235 <A HREF="param.html#stemlen">stemlen parameter</A>
236 that can be used to set the default stem length.
237 If you don't want any stems, setting that parameter to 0 is more
238 convenient than setting len to 0 on each chord individually.
241 On beamed chords, Mup will sometimes shorten a stem slightly
242 from its normal minimum length. By default it will never shorten by
243 more than one stemsize, but there is a
244 <A HREF="param.html#sshorten">stemshorten parameter</A>
245 that lets you adjust how much it will shorten. If you don't want Mup
246 to ever shorten stems, you can set this parameter to zero.
252 Sometimes it may be desirable to space notes somewhat differently than
253 Mup would normally place them.
254 <A NAME="pad">It is possible to specify "padding" before any note group.</A>
255 This is done by specifying the word "pad" followed
256 by a number of stepsizes of white space padding to add before the chord.
257 The number can be fractional, as in 0.5 or 2.25.
264 The padding can also be negative. Padding affects the minimum amount of
265 width allocated to a chord, so you can use positive padding values to
266 force additional room in front of a chord, or negative padding to allow
267 things closer together.
273 <A NAME="ctag">It is possible to set a location tag</A>
275 associated with an entire chord
276 rather than an individual note. This
277 <A HREF="tags.html">tag</A>
279 <A HREF="noteattr.html#ntag">location tags for notes,</A>
280 with an "=" followed by a name, but is inside
281 the square brackets rather than after a note.
284 1: [cue; with >; =_ch] fa;
291 <A NAME="hoffset">A horizontal offset can be applied to a chord by specifying "ho" followed</A>
292 by a number of stepsizes. The number can be positive or negative,
293 and can include a fractional part. A positive number will cause the chord to
294 be placed that far right of where the horizontal center of the chord
295 would normally be; a negative number will place it that far to the left.
296 It is also possible to simply specify a "+" or "-" which says to place the
297 chord to the right or left,
298 as close as possible without running into something.
301 A horizontal offset is most commonly used on the third voice of a staff,
302 although it can be used on other voices too.
303 By default, Mup places third
304 voice chords as close as it thinks is safe for avoiding
305 most collisions. Sometimes it may actually be okay visually
306 to place the chord a little closer than that,
307 or perhaps there is a better "nook" to tuck it into on the left side.
308 By specifying a horizontal offset, you can place chords anywhere you want.
309 Mup makes no checks to avoid collisions when you specify a horizontal
310 offset, so this attribute needs to be used with some care.
313 Here is an example of the use of horizontal offset and stem direction
322 1 3: [ho+1] g; [ho-5.2; down]; [ho-] f; [ho+; up] a;
325 <IMG SRC="mugex16.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
331 <A NAME="dist">Usually Mup's placement of rests is satisfactory, but once in a while</A>
332 you might want to force a rest to be placed a little higher or lower
333 than Mup would place it. You can specify a "dist" which is the number
334 of stepsizes from the center of the staff to place the rest symbol,
335 with positive numbers being above the center and negative numbers below.
337 <A HREF="param.html#xpose">transposed,</A>
338 the placement of the rest symbol will be adjusted accordingly.
340 // The first and last rests are in normal position.
341 // The second is forced higher, the third is forced lower.
342 1: r; [dist 6]; [dist -4]; r;
345 <IMG SRC="mugex17.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
351 <A NAME="rptattr">If two or more chords in a row have the same bracketed attributes,</A>
352 there are two shorthand notations. Specifying an empty set of brackets "[]"
353 means to use the same attributes as were specified on the previous chord.
354 The previous chord must be within the same measure.
357 1: [cue] 4c;[]d;[grace; slash 1] 8f;2e;
360 1: d; [with .,-]d; []e; []f;
363 <IMG SRC="mugex18.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
366 The other shorthand is to put 3 dots after a set of bracketed items.
367 This means to repeat the same bracketed items on all chords for the
368 rest of the measure, or until a new set of bracketed items is specified.
369 If you wish to cancel this before the end of a measure but without
370 specifying a new set, the special set "[-]" can be used.
372 // put staccato marks on all notes
373 1: [with .]... c; d; e; g;
375 // put several cue size notes in the middle of a measure
376 1: c; [cue]... 8d; f; e; g; [-] 4c+;
379 <IMG SRC="mugex19.gif" ALT="Picture of Mup output"><BR>
382 You can use more than one set of backets on a single chord.
383 For example "[len 5][down]" and "[len 5;down]" are equivalent.
384 However, [-] can only be used by itself, and if you want to use [] along
385 with another backeted set of items (to duplicate the items on the previous
386 chord plus add some more), the empty [] needs to be first, before the
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