gly 0.0.2

# gly Writer-friendly Gregorian notation format compiling to gabc. *GLY* is an acronym of "Gregorio for liLYponders" or "Gregorio with separate LYrics. ## Why One of the most popular solutions for typesetting quadratic notation used for the Gregorian chant is [Gregorio][gregorio]. However, I have several objections against it's input format. That led me to designing an alternative, Gregorio-inspired notation format, which compiles to pure Gregorio GABC (which I don't like writing manually). ## Features * music separated from lyrics * no need of the ubiquitous and tedious parentheses * separation of "material and form" -> easy copying of the music or lyrics alone is possible (useful for a composer) * syllabified lyrics entered in a format inspired by LilyPond * music and lyrics can be interspersed as needed * no semicolons in the header * custom header fields supported (commented out in the GABC output, as gregorio doesn't tolerate headers it doesn't know) * several scores per file (when compiled to gabc, each becomes a separate file) * compile pdf preview by a single command, without writing any (La)TeX ## Real world examples * [Proper Divine Office chants of Bohemian Premonstratensian houses][opraem_boh] ## Basic examples Typical GABC source of an antiphon looks like this: name: Nativitas gloriosae; office-part: laudes, 1. ant.; occasion: In Nativitate B. Mariae Virginis; book: Antiphonale Romanum 1912, pg. 704; mode: 8; initial-style: 1; %% (c4) NA(g)TI(g)VI(g)TAS(gd) glo(f)ri(gh)ó(g)sae(g) * (,) Vír(g)gi(g)nis(hi) Ma(gh)rí(gf)ae,(f) (;) ex(f) sé(g)mi(h)ne(h) A(hiwji)bra(hg)hae,(g) (;) or(gh~)tae(g) de(g) tri(g)bu(fe/fgf) Ju(d)da,(d) (;) cla(df!gh)ra(g) ex(f) stir(hg~)pe(hi) Da(h)vid.(g) (::) Corresponding GLY may look like this: name: Nativitas gloriosae office-part: laudes, 1. ant. occasion: In Nativitate B. Mariae Virginis book: Antiphonale Romanum 1912, pg. 704 mode: 8 initial-style: 1 c4 g g g gd f gh g g , g g hi gh gf f ; f g h h hiwji hg g ; gh~ g g g fe/fgf d d ; df!gh g f hg~ hi h g :: NA -- TI -- VI -- TAS glo -- ri -- ósae * Vír -- gi -- nis Ma -- rí -- ae, ex sé -- mi -- ne A -- bra -- hae, or -- tae de tri -- bu Ju -- da, cla -- ra ex stir -- pe Da -- vid. Or, with music and lyrics interlaced (this arrangement may be handy for larger scores, like full-notated hymns, sequences or nocturnal responsories): name: Nativitas gloriosae office-part: laudes, 1. ant. occasion: In Nativitate B. Mariae Virginis book: Antiphonale Romanum 1912, pg. 704 mode: 8 initial-style: 1 c4 g g g gd f gh g g , NA -- TI -- VI -- TAS glo -- ri -- ósae * g g hi gh gf f ; Vír -- gi -- nis Ma -- rí -- ae, f g h h hiwji hg g ; ex sé -- mi -- ne A -- bra -- hae, gh~ g g g fe/fgf d d ; or -- tae de tri -- bu Ju -- da, df!gh g f hg~ hi h g :: cla -- ra ex stir -- pe Da -- vid. Other arrangements are also possible. Order of music and lyrics is actually ignored during processing. ## Installation Install Ruby (some 2.x version) runtime. Then install as any ruby gem: `gem install gly` ## Usage This gem provides executable `gly`. Run `gly help` for full list of subcommands. The most important ones are: `gly gabc FILE1 ...` converts given gly file(s) to one or more gabc files (one per score, i.e. one gly may spawn a bunch of gabcs). `gly preview FILE1 ...` Attempts to create a pdf document with all scores contained in each gly file. Expects `gregorio` and `lualatex` to be in PATH and `gregoriotex` to be installed and accessible by `lualatex`. ## Tools [Emacs mode with syntax highlighting for gly][elisp]  ## Syntax reference Gly syntax is line-based. The interpreter reads the input line by line, and depending on context it interprets each line as e.g. music, lyrics or header field. The syntax is quite permissive, not requiring a lot of delimiters or hints for the parser concerning what each line means. Mostly the parser guesses the meaning correctly. Where not, meaning of each line can be stated explicitly. ### 1. Comments When a `%` sign is encountered, everything until the end of line is considered a comment and not interpreted. (Comment syntax is the same as in gabc.) Please note, that when compiling to gabc, comments are dropped and don't appear in the resulting gabc file. ### 2. Whitespace Empty lines are ignored. ### 3. Scores A new score begins at the beginning of a file or at a line containing a single keyword '\score'. It consists of a header (optional, only permitted at the beginning of a score) and music- and lyrics-lines. Lines with music and lyrics may appear in any order. Score ends with end of file or with explicit beginning of a new score or another top-level element. #### 3.1 Score header Score header consists of fields. Each header field is on it's own (one) line and consists of identifier, colon and value: `mode: 8` Header field identifier may only consist of alphanumeric characters, minus-sign and underscore. Value can contain anything. Score header ends with first non-empty line identified by the parser as music or lyrics. Header field 'id' is special: if present, it is used as suffix of the generated gabc file (instead of the default, which is numeric position of the score in the source document). #### 3.2 Lyrics Syntax of lyrics is inspired by LilyPond. Lyrics have to be manually syllabified. Default syllable delimiter is double dash (minus) `--` with optional whitespace around. `cla -- ra ex stir -- pe Da -- vid.` The parser guesses meaning of the line by attempting to find syllable separator in it and by looking if it's alphanumeric characters contains something that cannot be interpreted as music. If any of these conditions is met, the line is interpreted as lyrics. If gly fails to guess your lyrics line correctly and interprets it as music, place `\lyrics` or short `\l` at the beginning of the unhappy line: `\l a a a` #### 3.3 Music Any line appearing in a score and not identified as header field or lyrics is music by default. Music line contains one or more music chunks separated by whitespace. For music syntax see [official gabc documentation][gabc] - gly doesn't change anything in this respect. Music chunks may be enclosed in parentheses as in gabc. (Of course you don't like the parentheses and are happy that gly let's you leave them out. But in some special cases they come handy.) #### 3.4 Matching lyrics to music When processing the gly source and producing gabc, music chunks are matched to lyric syllables. There are, however, a few special cases, to make it work conveniently: These special cases of music chunks don't get lyric syllable: * clef * music chunk containing only a division - i.e. music chunk containing one of `,` , `;` , `:` , `::` alone Exception to this rule are 'nonlyrical lyrics chunks'. Currently there is only one built-in nonlyrical lyric chunk: asterisk `*`. Normally it is treated as any other syllable, but if it meets a division, it is set as it's lyrics, while a normal syllable wouldn't be. If you need to set some other syllable under a division, make it 'nonlyrical' by placing an exclamation mark at it's beginning, e.g. `!<i>Ps.</i>` In the other direction it is sometimes necessary to set a syllable not matching any music at all. In such cases empty music chunk `()` is what you need. ### 4. Document header Each gly document may optinally contain a document header. It may appear anywhere in the document, but best practice is to place it at the very beginning. Document header starts with keyword `\header` and ends at the end of file or at the beginning of another top-level element. The syntax of it's content is the same as for [Score header][]. Field 'title' in the document header is, if present, used by `gly preview` as title of the generated pdf. ## Run tests by executing `tests/run.rb` ## License MIT [gregorio]: https://github.com/gregorio-project/gregorio [gabc]: http://gregorio-project.github.io/gabc/index.html [elisp]: /tree/master/elisp [opraem_boh]: https://gist.github.com/igneus/1aed0b36e9b23b51526d