Ancient time signatures - GNU LilyPond
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#### 7.7.6 Ancient time signatures

There is limited support for mensural time signatures. The glyphs are hard-wired to particular time fractions. In other words, to get a particular mensural signature glyph with the `\time n/m` command, `n` and `m` have to be chosen according to the following table

Use the `style` property of grob TimeSignature to select ancient time signatures. Supported styles are `neomensural` and `mensural`. The above table uses the `neomensural` style. This style is appropriate for the incipit of transcriptions of mensural pieces. The `mensural` style mimics the look of historical printings of the 16th century.

The following examples show the differences in style,

##### See also

This manual: Time signature gives a general introduction to the use of time signatures.

##### Bugs

Ratios of note durations do not change with the time signature. For example, the ratio of 1 brevis = 3 semibrevis (tempus perfectum) must be made by hand, by setting

    breveTP = #(ly:make-duration -1 0 3 2)
    ...
    { c\breveTP f1 }

This sets `breveTP` to 3/2 times 2 = 3 times a whole note.

The `old6/8alt` symbol (an alternate symbol for 6/8) is not addressable with `\time`. Use a `\markup` instead

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