C Clef Reading Exercise Generation

What is this?

This is a modest tool to generate C clef reading exercises and uses Common Music Notation.

If you are someone who is good at transposition (like most horn players) and has gotten by on reading the C clefs mainly by transposition (or are simply new to them), you will find that you are slowed down when trying to sight-read scores.

The exercises this program generates are aimed at promoting the immediate recall of a given note.

When you generate a clef reading exercise, you will find the following format:

1. A single line on which a note on each line and then on each space is presented
2. A number of random notes appearing on any line of the clef
3. A number of random notes appearing on any space of the clef
4. A number of random notes appearing on any line or space of the clef
5. A number of chromatic notes appearing on any line or space of the clef

The randomization should prove to be especially effective, since when reading real music, one easily begins to play by finding the next note by interval, rather than immediate recall of the indicated pitch.

Dependencies

• Common Lisp (tested only on SBCL, but should work on any Lisp on which CMN works)
• ASDF
• Common Music Notation

Setup

Install Common Music Notation.

$ cd where/you/place/your/lisp/systems
$ wget ftp://ccrma-ftp.stanford.edu/pub/Lisp/cmn.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf cmn.tar.gz
$ ln -s cmn/cmn.asd

Install clef-reading

$ cd where/you/want/to/clone/clef-reading/repo
$ git clone git://github.com/grantham/clef-reading.git
$ cd clef-reading
$ ln -s ./clef-reading.asd where/you/place/your/lisp/systems/clef-reading.asd

Running

At your LISP REPL:

CL-USER> (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :clef-reading)
CL-USER> (in-package :cmn)
CL-USER> (make-reading 480 :clef soprano :file-name "soprano-reading.ps")

• The first argument to make-reading is the number of notes to generate for stages 2 - 5 listed above.
• The second argument, :clef is the clef for which the exercise is to be generate. May be one of soprano, alto, or tenor
• The last (optional) argument the output file name to which to write the exercise. Not providing this argument defaults to an output file called clef-reading.ps.

License

GPL version 3 or later