TEMPO, DYNAMIC MARKS, ORNAMENTS, ETC.

General information

There are a number of symbols and other markings that appear frequently in music, which are normally associated with a particular time or place in the composition. There are several classes of such symbols, all of which are handled by Mup in a somewhat similar fashion. The general format of these statements is:

mark_type place staff(s) distance : begintime text duration;

The mark_type can be any of the following:

Mark_type        Meaning

rom        text in roman font
ital       text in italic font
bold       text in bold font
boldital   text in bold-italic font
mussym     music symbol (fermata, coda sign, etc)
phrase     phrase mark
<          crescendo "hairpin"
>          decrescendo "hairpin"
octave     play 1 or more octaves higher or lower
pedal      piano pedal marks

The place is as for lyrics: above, below, or between. There are some restrictions, as summarized below:

                       place allowed
mark_type   above   below   between   default

rom          yes     yes      yes      above
bold         yes     yes      yes      above
ital         yes     yes      yes      above
boldital     yes     yes      yes      above
mussym       yes     yes      yes      above
phrase       yes     yes       no     varies
<            yes     yes      yes      above
>            yes     yes      yes      above
octave       yes     yes       no       none
pedal         no     yes       no      below

Octave marks must include a place of above or below. For all the other mark_types, the place is optional. For phrase, if place is not specified, Mup determines it on a case-by-case basis depending on the location of the notes.

As with musical data or lyrics, the staff can be a single number or may include lists and ranges. In the case of "between", staff numbers must be in pairs, separated by an "&", with the second staff number one greater than the first.

The staff can also be specified by the keyword "all," in which case the mark will be placed above the top visible staff or below the bottom visible staff.

Here are some examples:

rom 3:
boldital below 1:
< between 3&4:
pedal below 2:
octave above 3:
phrase 3,4:
mussym above 2-3, 5:
ital between 1&2, 3&4:

The distance is optional. It is specified by the keyword "dist" followed by a number. This number overrides the dist, chorddist, or dyndist parameter value that would normally apply, and is given in stepsizes. If the number is followed by a ! the items will be placed at exactly that distance from the edge of the staff, without regard for anything they might overwrite. Otherwise the normal rules apply: the dist is a minimum value, and items may be placed farther away than this to avoid colliding with other things. If the ! is used, the number is allowed to be negative, which allows you to place items inside the staff. A dist cannot be specified with pedal, phrase, or between.

score
	dist=2
music

rom above 1: 1 "normal dist";
rom above 1 dist 4: 2 "dist 4";		// higher than usual
rom above 1 dist 0! : 3 "forced 0";	// lower than normal
mussym above 1 dist -2! : 4.5 "rr";	// forced down into staff
1: c;;;;
endbar

Picture of Mup output

After the colon comes one or more items to be printed. Each item contains at least a begintime specification. Some may also contain a text string and/or a duration. Each item ends with a semicolon. A newline ends the list of items.

The begintime describes where in time the item should be printed. It is a number ranging from 0 to the numerator (top number) of the time signature plus one. 0 refers to the bar line at the beginning of the current measure, 1 refers to the first beat of the measure, 2 to the second beat, etc., with the maximum value referring to the bar line which ends the measure. A "beat" is whatever time value is given by the denominator (bottom number) of the time signature. For example, in 4/4 or 3/4 time, a beat is a quarter note, whereas in 6/8 or 9/8 time, a beat is an eighth note. Fractional values can be specified using a decimal number. Thus 1.5 is halfway between beats 1 and 2, while 2.66 is about 2/3 of the way between beats 2 and 3.

The beat time value can optionally be followed by an offset, in stepsizes. This offset is a number in square brackets. The number must begin with a + or - sign. It can optionally include a decimal point and fractional part. A negative offset will cause the item to be moved to the left, while a positive offset will cause it to be moved to the right. This offset is used as a final adjustment after all the other placement has been done. A common use for this would be if you want to place something slightly before the beginning of the first measure of a song. You could then specify something like:

rom above all: 0 [-3.5] "Allegro";

which would place the "Allegro" 3.5 stepsizes left of the beginning of the measure.

For items that include a duration, the duration tells the ending point of the item. A duration is specified by:

til Mm + N

where M is a number of bar lines to cross, and N is a number of additional beats. If either of them is 0, it can be omitted, but at least one of them must be non-zero. Here are some examples:
til 3	// until beat 3 of current measure
til 1m+2   // until beat 2 of next measure
til 1m   // until next bar line

Whether the text and duration are allowed or required depends on the mark_type, as summarized below:

mark_type    text            duration

rom        required          optional
bold       required          optional
ital       required          optional
boldital   required          optional
mussym     required      allowed on tr only
phrase    not allowed        required
<         not allowed        required
>         not allowed        required
octave     required          optional
pedal     * or nothing     not allowed

If there are several items, such that they have to be stacked on top of each other, all items of a particular class are placed from top to bottom according to input order. The classes are done in the order shown in the table below, unless the order is overridden by the aboveorder, beloworder, or betweenorder parameters.

above	(from bottom up)
   phrase
   mussym
   octave
   rom bold ital boldital < >
   lyrics
   endings
   rehearsal marks

below	(from top down)
   phrase
   mussym
   octave
   rom bold ital boldital < >
   lyrics
   pedal

between	(from bottom up)
   mussym
   rom bold ital boldital < >
   lyrics

For example, for the above items, all phrases will be placed as close to the staff as possible, then mussym items above them, then octave marks above them, etc. However, if there are several mussym items that belong at the same horizontal position, the first one entered in the input will be printed above the second, the second one entered will be printed above the third, etc. All of the "above all" items of a given class will be above the items of that class for the top visible staff, and all "below all" items of a given class will be below the items of that class for the bottom visible staff.
Text
Music symbols
Phrase marks
Crescendo and decrescendo marks
Octave marks
Piano pedal marks
Rolls
Placing marks relative to grace notes


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