GABC Help
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    I'm still not proficient with GABC notation, but thought I would give it another try for a simple antiphon. What am I doing wrong here? I'm trying to write out the Antiphon from the Lumen Christi Simple Gradual for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but wanting to add an Alleluia at the end for a Votive Mass in the Easter Season. This seems to mostly work, but the flat sign is not working. According to the cheat-sheet is should just be an x after the note. What's wrong with this code and any other tips to improve this transcription? I was using the Source and Summit Editor Alpha.

    Follow-up question: How does one add extra space between notes (if needed) or force a line break? Thanks.

    (c3) THE(d) de(e)signs(f) of(e) his(f) Heart(hih) (,) are(f) from(h) age(ih) to(f) age,(h) (;) to(d) res(f)cue(e) their(f) souls(gxe) from(gx) death(f) (,) and(d) to(e) keep(fd) them(e) a(f)live(hf) in(d) fam(ed)ine.(d) (:) Al(e)le(ef)lu(e.)ia.(e.) (::)
    Thanked by 1Bri
  • cmb
    Posts: 86
    Line break is (z).
    Thanked by 2Bri Earl_Grey
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    / for extra space (sometimes it’s needed/desired, sometimes a Gregobase score has it but later versions of Gregorio don’t require it).

    Justified line breaks are (z). Unjustified breaks are (Z). (I don't think that I've ever wanted to use the first one, myself…but I'm also not sure if Source and Summit observes a difference.)

    Using Source and Summit for this makes for weird line breaks as you can use the above notation, but because they don't use an up-to-date version of Gregorio but rather their own thing, the custos has to be printed, which is an issue if you're trying to print something where the custos isn't necessary. Gregorio allows (z-) and (Z-), so you'll expect this from the documentation, it's just that nothing happens when using Source and Summit. The custos is printed as usual.

    The flat sign needs its own note. From the documentation:
    Two letters have been chosen to represent the flat and the natural: x y. As these signs take the space of a note, we notate them like a note, for example, ix for a flat on the staff position represented by i.


    ix (or whatever note it is, with the clef being variable) can go in a place removed from the modified note; in melismatic chants like a tract, it isn't always printed right before the flat note (cf. the tract of Palm Sunday, which has, at "me" me(kxiji___//jkI'H//kxj_i/jkI'H)

    I have no idea if this is what you want (I don't have the antiphon in front of me) but I imagine that this is closer to what you want.

    (c3) THE(d) de(e)signs(f) of(e) his(f) Heart(hih) (,) are(f) from(h) age(ih) to(f) age,(h) (;) to(d) res(f)cue(e) their(f) (Z)
    souls(e) from(gxg) death(f) (,) and(d) to(e) keep(fd) them(e) a(f)live(hf) in(d) fam(ed)ine.(d) (:) Al(e)le(ef)lu(e.)ia.(e.) (::)
    Thanked by 2Bri Earl_Grey
  • cmb
    Posts: 86
    For the flats, you need to type the note again after the x. The (gx) just gives you the flat symbol; (gxg) gives you the flat symbol + the note. So, I think this is what you want:

    souls(gxge) from(gxg)

    As for space between the notes, that depends on what editor you are using. If you're using the S&S Editor, there is a slider for horizontal spacing that takes care of that. The guide has a section on manually adjusting spacing too, but I've never used that: http://gregorio-project.github.io/gabc/details.html#spaces
    Thanked by 2Bri Earl_Grey
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    Thanks! That worked!
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 422
    I'm in the midst of preparing some 'congregation friendly' Masses and would like to bold the lines that they are to sing (as opposed to those that are intoned by a cantor or sung by the choir). Using < b > in the midst of a notated section only bolds the syllable immediately before the < b > (rendering < /b > redundant. Does anyone have a workaround? [And yes, I'm inputting it without the spaces!]
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Can you post your code?

    In Gregorio, you can do tags at the beginning or end e.g. <b>Lau(ef)dá(g)mus(f) te.</b>(ef..)

    But it looks like if you're using Source and Summit, you need to go syllable by syllable.

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