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There are several optional attributes that can be specified for each note. Any or all of these may appear on any note in any order after the letter, accidental, and octave specifications. They include:
A note specification can be followed by a "?" to indicate the note is to be printed with a small notehead, rather than the normal size. (Note: if you have several notes in a chord and want all of them to be small, the "cue" construct, described later, may be preferable.)
Examples:
// print the "e" as a small note 1: 1c e? g; bar // make the second note small 1: f; ?; g; ; bar
A "~" can be used to indicate the note is to be tied to the note of the same pitch in the following chord. That following chord need not be in the same measure, but it must contain a matching note. (Note: if a chord with several notes is to have all the notes tied to the following chord, the "tie" construct described later may be preferable.) The ~ may be preceded by the word "dotted" or "dashed" if you want a dotted or dashed tie; otherwise a normal, solid tie is drawn. The ~ may be followed by the word "up" or "down" to specify the direction for the curve's bulge. If neither is specified, Mup will determine an appropriate direction, so you only need to give a direction if you wish to override Mup's choice. After the aforementioned items (if any), you may put "to voice N" to tie to the matching note in voice N rather than in the current voice.
Examples
1: d~; 8; e~; ; f; bar // tie the g (which also happens // to be a "small" note) 1: 2g+g?~; 4eg?; bar
A note can also be followed by a list of notes to be slurred to,
enclosed in angle brackets.
A slur will be drawn from the note to each of the notes
listed in the angle brackets. The notes inside the brackets
are specified by a pitch and optional octave. No
accidentals
are specified, even if the note to be slurred
to has an accidental. Examples:
// slur from c of first chord to e of second chord 1: c<e>; e; f; g; bar // slur from c+ of first chord to a& of second chord // and from c+ of first chord to d&+ of second chord 1: 2cc+<ad+>; a&d&+; bar
If there is only one note in the following chord, it isn't necessary to
explicitly state it within the angle brackets; "<>" will suffice.
// slur from c to d, and f to g 1: c<>; d; f<>; g; bar
The < may be preceded by the word 'dotted' or 'dashed' if you want a dotted or dashed slur, otherwise a normal, solid slur is drawn. The > may be followed by the word "up" or "down" to specify the direction for the curve's bulge. If neither is specified, Mup will determine an appropriate direction, so you only need to give a direction if you wish to override Mup's choice. After the aforementioned items (if any), you may put "to voice N" to slur to the matching note in voice N rather than in the current voice.
There are four special "slurs" which are really slides to/from an
indefinite note. They are most commonly used on
tablature staffs,
but are allowed on ordinary staffs too.
They are: </n> <\n> <n/> and <n\> for sliding upward into the note,
downward into the note, upward out from the note, and downward out from
the note respectively. These have to be in angle brackets by themselves,
so if you want to have both one of these slides and another slur on the
same note, multiple sets of angle brackets must be used, as in
1: 2c</n><d>;d;
Sometimes you may want to mix head shapes on a single stem.
For example, you might want to use a diamond to designate a harmonic,
with other notes in the same chord being normal shape.
There is an entire
section on head shapes,
so only a simple example is given here.
To make a single note have a different head shape,
use hs followed by the name of the shape in quotes.
1: 2e e+ hs "diam";g;
An underscore followed by a quoted string will cause that string to be
printed to the left of the note and any accidentals.
Typically this would be used for fingering, but the string can be anything.
1: 2f _"3";g _"4";
There are noteleftfont, noteleftfontafmily, and noteleftsize parameters for adjusting the string appearance.
Finally, a "location tag" can be associated with a note. This would enable you to draw things relative to the note. A note location tag is set by using an "=" followed by a name. The name can be either:
// associate tag p with note e& 3: 2c; e& =p g; // associate tag _end with note f 2: 1f =_end;