Notation

In this section we will discuss how to use the Clan Lord notation to write actual music you can use in the game. For the technical requirements, please have a look [[Technical|here].

Notes

In theory the use of notes is pretty straight forward in CL notation. To play a c, you can simply use the letter c. If you want it to be followed by a g, write cg. To determine the length of a note, simply put a number between 1 and 9 for the amount of beats right after the note, the default value here is 2, so c equals c2. A short way to write a note with the length of 4 beats, you can also use the capital letter that describes that note, e.g. C being the same as c4.

And example for this might look like this:

CdeCe3f1df1g1edC

Now you can also alter the pitch of every note by a semitone. To raise it, use # between the note and its length, to lower it, use a . as an equivalent of ♭. If we take our short melody from above and lower every e to an e flat (e♭), we will get the following result:

Cde.Ce.3f1df1g1e.dC

Pauses

While notes are extremely important, pauses are almost as valuable and very much underated. Well placed pauses can provide structure for a whole piece or a short rhythm and create tension and release (a very good formula for writing music by the way). As an example have a listen at the first seconds of For Those Who Departed Forever by Bingro.

@70([%6\d]8%6[=d]p[/d]p[=f]p[=a]2p8p)2([\g]8[=d]p[/d]p[=g]p[=b.]2p8p)2

You can use pauses in the same way as notes by using the character p and a length with 2 being the default if no length is set.

Other helpful stuff

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