On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 01:17:46PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Graham Percival <gra...@percival-music.ca> writes:
>
> > Before moving to computer science, I was a cello teacher. And I'm now
> > playing first violin in an orchestra doing, amongst other things,
> > Tchaik's Romeo and Juliet. I also played viola for half of my music
> > degree. I'm very familiar with (bowed) string music.
>
> So you should be perfectly aware that the notation Reinhold refers to
> (including references, by the way) exists.
Yes, and I (apparently falsely) believed that I showed how to
create that notation without using lilypond chord constructs.
> > There's a couple of separate issues here:
> > - what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
> > arbitrary violinist?
> > - what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
> > expert in music notation?
> > - what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
> > lilypond manual?
> > - what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
> > lilypond internal code (be it scheme or C++)?
>
> I think you are focusing on the wrong issues here. Precise definitions
> of "chord" don't even matter. Lilypond is not a composer, it is
> notation software. The purpose of notation software is to put down a
> suitable visible representation of how composers wish to see their
> concepts expressed when specified in a reasonable manner in Lilypond's
> input language.
I'm not focusing on them; I'm listing them so that people can
clearly state which one they're interested in.
> String music composers use chords with notes of different length. There
> are references for that. The execution is clear. Whether or not you
> like the notation or concept, it is there to stay, and saying Lilypond
> should not be allowed to deal with this notation well because composers
> should rather get a clue is putting the cart before the horse.
So you are stating that:
1. violinists believe that a "chord" can contain notes of
different durations.
2. notation experts believe that a "chord" can contain notes of
different durations.
3. lilypond should have a way of creating this notation.
(note that I'm not using the word "believe" in a derogatory sense)
Point 1 is definitely correct. I have no opinion on point 2; I am
neither an expert on notation, nor particularly interested in the
subject. But I have no interest in disputing point 2.
The remaining question is "how should lilypond create that
notation", which can be divided into:
- "how should lilypond represent this notation internally" (I note
that your patch uses simultaneous music rather than lilypond
"chords")
- "how should we explain how to use this notation in our docs"
I have no opinion on the first question, since it's outside of my
expertise. I do not expect the second question to be problematic,
but I will certainly review any doc patches, and if anything major
needs to be done, I'll definitely help with that.
> > Look, if you want to get a violinist "chord", you do this:
> > \new Staff \relative c'' {
> > <<
> > { \voiceOne g,4 }
> > { \voiceOne d'4 }
> > { \voiceOne b'4 }
> > { \voiceOne g'2 }
> > >>
> > }
> >
> > not hard. Wrap it up in a music function to make it easier.
>
> It works by accident, with clashing notehead warnings, and with stems
> that just happen to overlap if you are lucky and are not subject to
> Lilypond's usual operations ensuring good quality.
Oh, I didn't realize that the stems were overlapping rather than
actually merged.
> I resend my patch that will do the right thing when just writing
>
> << g,4 d'4 b'4 g'2 >>
Great!
> I sent it to the devel list. All I got was one comment that this would
> likely not be accepted. Questions why this was so were not replied to.
...
Please tell me that you are not surprised that our development
process is a mess. Please tell me that you know that we've been
making a lot of noise about this over the past six months. Please
tell me that you are aware of the huge number of issues in:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.13/Documentation/contributor/policy-decisions
in particular, the "patch reviewing" item. I've stated a few
times that this should be our first big policy discussion once
2.14 is out.
-snip-
> That's a deficiency, not an advantage of Lilypond.
Agreed! And it's great to see some work in this area.
Cheers,
- Graham
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