What is the best way get rhythm section notation (rhythmic notation, kicks over time, and slash notation) to display in LilyPond / Frescobaldi?

Question

I have an arranging project due very soon, so I decided to ask this while I might still get help and a response. What is the best way to get rhythm section notation techniques like rhythmic notation, "kicks over time", and slash notation to display? To clarify, these techniques are illustrated here (https://ol.berklee.edu/pluginfile.php/4306485/mod_resource/content/1/RS%20Basics.pdf). For slash notation, I have seen this template (http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/learning/jazz-combo), but I was wondering if I can add the chords to an instrument without creating a new variable and just make them part of the instrument when I put it in the score block (a simple explanation for how they are getting the slashes to occur would also be helpful). As for rhythmic notation (diamonds or slashes with rhythmic heads on them) or "kicks over time", I haven't seen any explanation or tutorial on how to do these in LilyPond / Frescobaldi and I am going to need to know how to do them. Thanks if anyone can provide me with information on this as not knowing these techniques right now is the only thing that is preventing me from using LilyPond for my everyday projects and compositions (on a side note I was also wondering if the chords will play in MIDI with these techniques or if I need specific notation for that). Here are a few pictures to clarify what I mean:

Answer 1

Kicks over time can be shown by placing an empty "staff" above the drum staff.

Rhythmic slashes can be made by changing the note head style, and hiding the stems (or not).

\version "2.18.2"

%% Chord Progression
chordProgression = {
    \new ChordNames {
        \chordmode {
            c1:7 |
            f1:7.9+ |
            d1:m7 |
            g1:7 |
        }
    }
}

%% Kicks Over Time
kicksOverTime = {
    \new Staff {        
        \override Staff.VerticalAxisGroup #'staff-staff-spacing =
            #'( (basic-distance . 5) 
                (minimum-distance . 5) 
                (padding . 1) )
        \override Staff.Clef #'stencil = ##f
        \override Staff.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
        \override Staff.BarLine #'stencil = ##f
        \override Staff.StaffSymbol.line-count = #0
            s1 |
            r2 r4 r8 f'8 |
            r8 f'8 r4 r2 |
            s1 |
    }
}

%% Drum Kit Slashes
drumKitSlashes = {
    \new DrumStaff \with { 
            instrumentName = "Drums" 
            midiInstrument = "synth drum" } {
        \clef "percussion"
        \time 4/4 \numericTimeSignature
        \override NoteHead.style = #'slash
        \hide Stem
            b1 |
            b2 b2 |
            b4 b4 
        \undo\hide Stem 
                b4-- b8 b8->~ |
            b2. r8 b8-> |
    }
}

%% SCORE
\score {
    <<
        \chordProgression
        \kicksOverTime
        \drumKitSlashes
    >>
}

Answer 2

One more way to get rhythmic slash notation is to use

\improvisationOn toml4 toml toml toml \improvisationOff

What remains here is to remove the stems using \hide Stem (or perhaps there is an easier method?).

Note that I'm using toml simply because it is drawn on the middle line in Weinberg notation style.

This produces the following result:

which I find enough for my sheets. Hopefully we find even less syntactically verbose way to write these.

Edit: I have created a function

slash = {
        \improvisationOn \omit Stem
        b4
        \undo \omit Stem \improvisationOff
}

that can be used for this purpose

\slash

It draws one slash quarter note.