12.6.3. Adjust Frescobaldi's Output

⁠12.6.3. Adjust Frescobaldi's Output

These steps are useful in establishing a consistent input style for LilyPond. The things suggested here are also useful for getting used to working with large scores, which can be a challenge in any text editor. Thankfully, careful (and consistent!) code organization goes a long way in helping you to quickly find your way around your files. Setting up files the right way to begin with makes this much easier in the end.

When you first setup the score, Frescobaldi will have created many sections for you by default. The program avoids making too many stylistic choices for you, which allows you to create your own style. It also sets up the default sections in a logical way:

version
header
widely-used settings like tempoMark and "global"
individual parts
score formatting

The specific ordering will become more obvious to you as you get used to LilyPond.

Here are some of the things that I do before inputting notes:

Use section-dividers (like %%%%%%%% NOTES %%%%%%%% for individual parts) to demarcate sections.
Use different levels of dividers (like %%%% OBOE %%%% for the oboe) to show sub-sections
Add blank lines between large sections, to separate them more obviously
Begin braces on new lines, like
\header
{
  title = "Symphony"
  ...
}

instead of on the same line, like
\header {
  title = "Symphony"
  ...
}

This is simply a matter of personal taste, resulting from prior experience with C and C-like programming languages.
Familiarize myself with the sections and commands created by Frescobaldi, getting a sense of what the section/command does (even if I don't understand what each specific command does). This makes it easier to sort out problems and customization down the road. Sometimes, when the setup is quite complex, I make comments about what seems to be going on.
Change the instrument names to replicate what my score indicates. You don't necessarily need to do this, so long as the people using your score will understand what the instruments are. Since my goal is to replicate this Dover edition score, I will change the names.
1. In the "PARTS" section, each xPart section has an "instrumentName = "something"" field.
2. We'll be changing those to the following Italian names:
  - Flute --> Flauto
  - Oboe I --> I Oboe
  - Oboe II --> II Oboe
  - Bassoon --> 2 Fagotti
  - Horn in F --> 2 Corni in Sol (NB: these would have been "natural horns")
  - Trumpet in C --> 2 Clarini in Do (NB: a clarino is a kind of trumpet)
  - Violin I --> Violino I
  - Violin II --> Violino II
  - Cello --> Violoncello obligato
  - Contrabass --> Basso
3. Now we have to change the horns' transposition to match the name. This is because Frescobaldi added a "Horn in F" part, which is the most common horn transposition. However, Haydn's score uses horns in G (or "Sol" in Italian).
4. Scroll up to the "hornF" section under the NOTES marker. Change the line \transposition f to \transposition g.
5. As it turns out, transposition can be a little more complicated than that. We'll deal with that when we get there.