Fomus

Formats for marks and their arguments are shown in a pseudo lambda-list style format with &optional symbols to designate optional arguments. Some arguments are shown as a choice between several options or symbols, each separated by a pipe character. In most cases, it doesn't matter in what order the arguments appear–fomus figures out which is which by the data types (reorderable arguments like this are shown by a double arrow figure). also, spanner marks that belong together are shown together and separated with forward slashes. The following list is a reference for the some of the arguments given in the following sections:

art-order

an integer for articulations specifying relative closeness to the notehead (lower numbered articulations are closer than higher numbered ones).

clef

a valid clef symbol (see the clefs slot in structure instr for a list of these symbols).

level

this integer distinguishes between inner and outer levels of spanner markings. the default value is 1. smaller numbers are "inner" markings occurring close to the staff while larger numbers are "outer" markings occurring farther away from the staff. there are two methods of designating which level a mark is to appear on. the first is to use the same few level numbers repeatedly (for example, 1 may be used to designate the 1st or innermost level and 2 to designate the 2nd level, as in two levels of slur markings). this method allows the user to be "lazy" and leave out matching start and end marks– fomus can supply the missing marks by finding the next start or end marks in that level. the second method is to use a separate number for each start/end pair–in this case, all start marks must have matching end marks or fomus will try to supply missing marks for each individual "level" and create a mess.

note

a valid note symbol or number (see the note slot in the note class).

staffnum(s)

one or more valid staff numbers (numbering starts at 1, indicating the topmost staff).

string

a text string.

trem-subdiv

a durational value (a ratio or integer) for a tremolo subdivision. it is specified in beats (for example, if one beat equals a quarter note value, a tremolo with a value of 1/2 indicates an eighth-note tremolo, 1/4 indicates a sixteenth-note tremolo, etc.). if the optional :notated keyword is given, the number is instead interpreted as a written duration regardless of the beat value (so in this case, 1/8 indicates an eighth-note tremolo, 1/16 indicates a sixteenth-note tremolo, etc.). the absence of a number indicates an unmeasured tremolo and is notated with three tremolo beams.

marks with no arguments can always be indicated with a symbol only (the enclosing list isn't necessary). also, many of these symbols closely correspond to symbols used in some of the backend formats (musicxml and lilypond). not all symbols are supported in all of the backends.