Ekmelily is an extension for LilyPond that supports variable
accidentals and key signatures for the notation of microtonal music
in several equal-temperament tunings:
12, 19, 24, 31, 36, 48, 53, and 72-EDO.
For this purpose, it introduces predefined and
user-definedNotation Styles.
Each style determines a set of symbols for the alterations up to the
five-quarters-tone, at most.
Moreover, Ekmelily defines own note names based on the
names for semi- and quarter-tones given in LilyPond.
Ekmelily 3.10 requires LilyPond version 2.19.22 or higher. LilyPond is the free GNU music typesetter to automatically produce
high-quality sheet music. It runs on GNU/Linux, OS X, and Windows.
Download
Folder
… all files of Ekmelily:
LilyPond include files, short demos of the notation styles,
old versions, et al
Zip Archive
… with the LilyPond include files et al
Esmuflily
… an extensions for LilyPond to use other music symbols
from Ekmelos / SMuFL – clefs, time signatures,
noteheads, rests, flags, articulations, dynamics, playing techniques, etc.
Installation
The folder ly contains all available include files (*.ily).
Copy the include file(s) for the desired tuning(s)
as well as the main include file ekmel-main.ily into an
appropriate folder, e.g. "LILYPOND/usr/share/lilypond/current/ly",
with LILYPOND meaning the installation folder of LilyPond.
Install the Ekmelos font if it shall be used for the accidental
symbols in Ekmelily; see Fonts.
Usage
Add the following lines near the top of your LilyPond input file.
They are all optional – except for the include file of the desired
tuning – but should be specified in this order.
Ekmelily supports different tunings available by separate include files.
Each provides its own set of languages and
predefined notation styles.
The first LANGUAGE and STYLENAME specified in the
following table is the default in the respective tuning.
Tuning
Include file
LANGUAGE
STYLENAME
12
ekmel-12.ily
deutsch english nederlands català (catalan) español (espanol) italiano français português (portugues) norsk suomi svenska vlaams
std sag msag
19
ekmel-19.ily
deutsch english nederlands català (catalan) español (espanol) italiano français português (portugues) norsk suomi svenska vlaams
std sag msag
24
ekmel-24.ily
deutsch english nederlands català (catalan) español (espanol) italiano français português (portugues) norsk suomi svenska vlaams
stc stz go stvt arrow sag msag arabic persian four haba
Note: Ekmelily versions prior to 3.0 support only 72-EDO.
Languages
Each tuning supports several note name languages,
which can be selected with the command
\language "LANGUAGE"
If LANGUAGE is not supported by the respective tuning, the
default language is selected (usually "deutsch").
The note names are based on the names for semi- and quarter-tones given
in LilyPond. See the Tables with all note names.
Enharmonically equivalent Note names
Some notation styles support two distinct, enharmonically equivalent
accidentals; e.g. the arrow, rhm, and sims
notations for the one-quarter-tone and three-quarters-tone.
Therefore, Ekmelily defines two note names each, e.g. cqs and
csaqf ("english") or cih and ciseh
("deutsch").
However, LilyPond does not support different accidentals for the same
alteration. As a provisional solution, the combined note names (e.g.
csaqf or ciseh) have slightly differing alterations
and are therefore not suitable for MIDI output.
Notation Styles
Predefined Notation Styles
Each tuning supports several predefined notation styles,
which can be selected with the command
\ekmelicStyle STYLENAME
If STYLENAME is not supported by the respective tuning, the
default notation style is selected. This can be overwritten with the
command line option2
-dekmelic-style=STYLENAME
The following table shows all predefined notation styles.
N indicates the default style in tuning N.
See the Tables with all alterations or the Ekmelos Documentation
for details on the accidentals (code points, glyph names etc.).
MYNAME is a freely chosen style name.
If it is an empty string "", the current style name
extended with the suffix -user is taken.
ALTERATION must be a rational number.
For each specified ALTERATION, a new accidental is defined
which is the concatenation of the ACC-ELEMENTs.
For all other alterations where the previous accidental of
ALTERATION appears likewise (usually in combination with further
symbols), this accidental is also replaced by the new one.
Therefore, the order of alterations in the definition list can be
significant; in particular, when a replaced accidental is again defined
but for another alteration (see the last example).
ACC-ELEMENT must be either a code point as an integer number
(e.g. #xE262), or a character literal (e.g. #\b),
or a string of any length (e.g. "bb").
Two or more ACC-ELEMENTs are juxtaposed with a padding of 0.12
staff units, but no extra space is inserted between the characters of a
string.
Note that in a SMuFL14 compliant font, accidental symbols
have a zero side-bearing. This also applies to the Basic Latin (ASCII)
characters in the Ekmelos font.
Fonts
Ekmelily requires a font for the accidental symbols as an extension to
LilyPond's own Emmentaler font.
When using a predefined notation style, this font
must be compliant with SMuFL.14
By default, the Ekmelos font is used.
Another font (e.g. Bravura) can be selected, either in the LilyPond
input file before the include file with the variable
Set the name of the current notation style as the output filename
suffix for the current \book section.
\ekmelic-style-name
Draw the name of the current notation style as markup.
\ekmelic-char #ALTERATION
Draw an accidental according to the current notation style as markup.
ALTERATION must be a rational number.
\ekmelic-fraction #ALTERATION
Draw ALTERATION as a fraction arranged vertically (not just
a string num/denom) or as an integer if its denominator is 1,
with a separate minus sign for a negative value.
ALTERATION must be a rational number.
This sets the predefined Stein / Zimmermann notation (stz) for
quarter-tones (24-EDO) and modifies it into a user-defined notation
with the Sagittal flat 11 medium diesis down symbol
(U+E327) for three-quarter-tones flat,
amd a concatenation of two sharp symbols (U+E262)
for double-sharp.
This sets the notation after Karlheinz Stockhausen for 24-EDO
with the fractional sharp symbols (U+ED58) and
(U+ED5A),
and the quarter-tone flat symbol (U+ED59),
and selects the Dutch note names.
This sets a variant of the Hesse notation for 72-EDO
using SMuFL characters:
Gould arrows (U+E27A, U+E27B),
Sims half arrows (hooks) (U+E2A4, U+E2A1),
and Bosanquet commatic symbols (U+E479, U+E47A).
It is very similar to the Arrow notation.
This sets the Standard Sharp / flat symbols, single thru quintuple,
like the predefined Diatonic notation (dia)
but for quarter-tones (24-EDO).
The quadruple symbols (U+F61C, U+F61D) are private supplements
in the Ekmelos font.
Note that here, the order of alterations is significant since
the standard accidentals in the previous notation (stc)
are rearranged.
Further examples of user-defined styles can be found
in the file styles/user-styles.ly.
What's New
Version 3.10 ():
The Diatonic notation for 53-EDO and the Gould / Stein / Couper notation
for 72-EDO is added.
The Gould / Stein / Zimmermann notation is renamed to gostz.
gost is now an alias name.
Version 3.9 ():
The file ekmel-53.ily with note names and notations for
Turkish music is added.
Version 3.8 ():
The Hesse notation for 72-EDO is added.
Version 3.7 ():
New languages are available in ekmel-36.ily and
ekmel.ily ("norsk", "suomi", "svenska").
In ekmel-24.ily, some quarter-tone names of "suomi" are corrected.
Version 3.6 ():
The note names are revised according to LilyPond 2.22.
New languages are available in ekmel-24.ily ("catalan",
"norsk", "suomi", "svenska", "vlaams"), in ekmel-36.ily
("nederlands"), and in ekmel.ily ("nederlands").
Native language names ("català", "español", "português") or their
alias names can be used.
Version 3.5 ():
ekmel-24.ily: The Hába notation for quarter-tones
uses the SMuFL glyphs (U+EE64-U+EE69) and the default notation is
stc instead of go.
Version 3.4 ():
The Hába notation for quarter-tones (24-EDO) and
for 1/3-, 1/6-, and 1/12-tones (36 and 72-EDO) is added.
Version 3.3 ():
Definitions to adjust the size of accidentals on grace notes are
removed (obsolete since 3.2).
Version 3.2 ():
The output of accidentals is newly implemented (stencil instead of
simple text) and the hair-space character (U+200A) is not used any
more for padding in composite accidentals.
The natural sign for restore and key cancellation now depends on the
notation style (not always U+E261).
Version 3.1 ():
Key signatures are now supported.
The file ekmel-24.ily defines an alteration order for key
signatures including quarter tones.
A new file ekmel-arabic.ily is available for Arabic scores
(24-EDO) including maqamat (taken from arabic.ly).
Version 3.0 ():
A completely revised version that now supports different tunings
(12, 19, 24, 31, 36, 48, 72-EDO) by separate include files.
Arabic and Persian notation are added for 24-EDO.
↑abThe file ekmel-arabic.ily is a variant of
ekmel-24.ily for Arabic scores, like LilyPond's arabic.ly
but with the correct accidentals (U+ED30 - U+ED38 in SMuFL).
It supports Arabic maqamat and defines only the Arabic notation and
Italian note names, so the commands \ekmelicStyle
and \language are not required.
↑abLilyPond produces a warning "no such internal option", which can be ignored.
Warnings can be suppressed with the command line option
--loglevel=ERROR or --loglevel=NONE.
↑rhm uses optional glyphs (U+F600 - U+F605) for the
accidentals after Franz Richter Herf and Rolf Maedel as they are not included in SMuFL.
They are private supplements in the Ekmelos font.
↑hesse uses optional glyphs (U+F606 - U+F60B) for the
accidentals proposed by Horst-Peter Hesse as they are not included in SMuFL.
They are private supplements in the Ekmelos font.
↑msag uses the large double sharp (U+E47D in SMuFL).
Hence it is different from std even for 12-EDO.
↑sth uses optional glyphs (U+F612, U+F613) for the
semi-flat symbols. They are private supplements in the Ekmelos font.
↑arabic uses the Arabic accidentals (U+ED30 - U+ED38 in SMuFL).
See the file ekmel-arabic.ily which supports Arabic maqamat.1
↑persian uses the Persian accidentals Koron and Sori
after Ali-Naghi Vaziri (probably) (U+E460, U+E461 in SMuFL).
See Persian music notation by Kees van den Doel for proper Persian microtonal
alterations, note names, keys, etc.
↑aeu uses the accidentals for
classical Turkish music (KTM) (U+E440 - U+E447 in SMuFL)
and an optional glyph (U+F619) for the reversed slashed flat.
This is a private supplement in the Ekmelos font.
See LilyPond's turkish-makam.ly for key signature definitions.
↑aeuek equals aeu but does not use
the reversed slashed flat, i.e. eksik-bakiye = koma.
↑thm uses the accidentals for
Turkish folk music (THM) (U+E450 - U+E457 in SMuFL).
↑dia uses optional glyphs (U+F61C, U+F61D)
for the quadruple Sharp / flat symbols. They are private supplements in the Ekmelos font.
↑haba in the 36- and 72-EDO tunings uses optional glyphs
(U+F660 - U+F670). They are private supplements in the Ekmelos font.
↑abSMuFL
(Standard Music Font Layout) is a specification for music symbols,
developed by the W3C Music Notation Community Group. It uses the Unicode
Private Use Area (PUA) starting at code point U+E000.