6 1.1 New Features in Mup Version 5.3
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.
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.
26 Other new features in 5.3 include:
28 - Error and warning messages have been enhanced to show
29 you the text of the line of input where the problem was
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
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:
41 - To have separate MIDI tracks for different voices,
42 yet have the voices printed on common stems.
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
49 - The scorepad parameter now accepts an optional maximum
50 value, in addition to the minimum value.
52 1.2 New Features in Mup Version 5.2
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.
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.
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
76 - It is now possible to force stem direction on voices 1
77 and 2 even when the other voice is not space.
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,
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
94 - The HTML version of the Mup User's Guide now includes
95 'next page' and 'previous page' links on each page.
97 1.3 New Features in Mup Version 5.1
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.
106 - Cross-staff stems are now supported.
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
113 - Mup will now allow you to beam across spaces as well as
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.
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
125 - There is a new option for printing of tuplet numbers,
126 where the number is always printed, but the bracket is
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.
133 - Improvements have been made to how voice 3 is placed,
134 which will often eliminate the need to manually specify
137 1.4 New Features in Mup Version 5.0
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.
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.
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
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).
162 - It is now possible to change the clef, defoct, and
163 release parameters in the middle of a measure.
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.
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
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.
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
189 1.5 New Features in Mup Version 4.6
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.
197 - There is a new "block" context, that lets you place
198 blocks of text in your musical scores.
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.
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.
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.
219 - There are new parameters measnumfont,
220 measnumfontfamily, and measnumsize, to control the
221 appearance of automatic measure numbers.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
247 1.6 New Features in Mup Version 4.5
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
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.
261 - The drawing of phrase marks, ties, and slurs has been
262 re-implemented to produce more aesthetically pleasing
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.
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.
281 - There are some new user-donated files, including a
282 Windows installer, and Mup syntax files for nedit and
285 1.7 New Features in Mup Version 4.4
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.
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.
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.
317 - You can now use \s(PV) or \s(previous) in a text string
318 to return to the previous size.
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.
325 - Phrase marks can now have an optional line type
326 modifier of dotted or dashed.
328 1.8 New Features in Mup Version 4.3
330 - There is a new rehstyle parameter that controls whether
331 rehearsal marks are boxed, circled, or plain.
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.
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.
344 - There are new -E and -C options that let you see how
345 macros expand, which can help you in debugging very
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.
354 - It is now possible to have more than one voice on
355 tablature staffs just like on non-tablature.
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.
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."
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
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.
377 1.9 New Features in Mup Version 4.2
379 - A third voice per staff is now supported.
381 - It is now possible to adjust the horizontal placement
384 - It is now possible to beam across rests.
386 - The optional automatic measure numbers at the
387 beginnings of scores are now printed in a larger size.
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.
396 - Strings can be printed enclosed in a circle or elipse.
398 - There is a new beamslope parameter that controls the
399 maximum tilt for beams.
401 - There is a new pad parameter that provides an
402 additional way to control how close together note
403 groups are placed horizontally.
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.
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.
413 1.10 New Features in Mup Version 4.1
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.
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.
425 - The maximum number of staffs has been raised to 40.
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
432 - The staffsep parameter can now be set on a per-staff
433 basis, rather than just for the score as a whole.
435 - There are new parameters that allow you to control the
436 order that items above, below, and between staffs are
439 - It is now possible to turn off the automatic numbering
440 of measure repeats and the printing of multirest
443 - It is now possible to specify the vertical placement of
444 a rest character, if you want to override Mup's
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.
451 - There is a new firstpage parameter, which is similar to
452 the -p command line option, for setting the first page
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.
459 - Music symbols that occur inside ital or boldital
460 strings will automatically be made italics to match the
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.
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.)
471 1.11 New Features in Mup Version 4.0
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
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.
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
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
505 - Quadruple whole rests are supported.
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
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.
517 - There is a new warn parameter which allows you to
518 control whether warning messages are printed or not.
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.
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.
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
536 - If a given input file name does not exist, Mup will try
537 appending .mup to the name and attempt to open that
540 - It is now possible to specify an uncollapseable space.
541 This may be useful when drawing "slash" marks and at
544 - There is a new user-donated program called midi2mup,
545 which is a Perl script that can convert a MIDI file to
548 - The uguide gives examples of how to places verses as
549 text blocks below the scores.
551 1.12 Coming Attractions
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.
~mdw / mup / blob