How do I set the drums notation style in LilyPond?

Question

LilyPond documentation lists several different drum notation styles (like agostini, weinberg).

These are to be selected by setting the drumStyleTable in context DrumVoice. I would like to use the weinberg-drums-style.

I am currently using the shorthand \drums command, instead of \new DrumStaff.

Where exactly should I put something like:

\set DrumStaff.drumStyleTable = #(alist->hash-table weinberg-drums-style)

And what would be the most convenient syntax?

I've seen different examples in the Cookbook, the documentation, and the mailing lists but had no luck so far using any of those with v2.23.12.

I would like to stick with the \drums syntax, if possible.

Answer 1

Place the \set command inside the block it is referring to.

But, you don't need to call a hash-table explicitly because you aren't using a custom drumStyleTable; theweinberg-drums-style is predefined.

So you should get something like this:

\drums {
    \set DrumStaff.drumStyleTable = #weinberg-drums-style
        bd4 hh sn hh |
}

which is equivalent to:

\new DrumStaff {
    \set DrumStaff.drumStyleTable = #weinberg-drums-style
    \drummode {
        bd4 hh sn hh |
     }
}

Answer 2

Since you appear to want this as a global setting, you'd place it in the respective \layout block, such as:

\layout {
  \context {
    \DrumStaff
    drumStyleTable = #(alist->hash-table weinberg-drums-style)
  }
}

Indeed, your statement can actually also be used directly there as:

\layout {
  \set DrumStaff.drumStyleTable = #(alist->hash-table weinberg-drums-style)
}

but the meaning is subtly different since this variant will also affect all contexts that contain an \alias "DrumStaff" declaration.