On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 4:47 PM Dan Eble <dan@lyric.works> wrote: > > > On 2024-12-13 13:20, Trevor Bača wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 2:00 AM David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote: > >> > >> Yup, but a duration has structural properties (there are different > >> durations with the same length). That is not wanted here. > >> > > > > The word "duration" means a length of time. > > > > Can someone explain what structural properties LilyPond's model of > > duration has, above and beyond simply modeling a length of time? > > It has three parts: > 1. power-of-2 note value > 2. number of augmentation dots > 3. scaling factor (to describe a member of a tuplet, for example) >
That makes all the sense in the world. Thank you so much. Then what seems to be happening in the naming is a confusion between one way of *representing* duration (with the dots and scaling factor) and duration itself. These are not the same thing. The naming problems would go away if this three-part way of modeling duration were qualified in its name: dottedDuration, dottedIntegerDuration, probably something like that since the augmentation dots appear to be the most distinctive feature of this particular model for duration. Though anything could work. This would have the effect of freeing up "duration" to just mean what the English word means: an amount of time. If you do something like this, then there will be no need to introduce "music length" as a crippled synonym for "duration." -- Trevor Bača www.trevorbaca.com soundcloud.com/trevorbaca
