On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 07:24:51AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote: > Kieren MacMillan <kieren_macmil...@sympatico.ca> writes: > > > I was > > brainstorming an orchestration teaching tool, where one could find the > > distribution of notes in an instrument across an entire score, to show > > students where [good] composers tend to have their instruments play. > > > > How hard would that be to implement as a function? > > Probably easiest done as an engraver as then you have the timing > information (absolute and bar number) available.
Perhaps I misunderstand Kieren and/or David, but I took Kieren's idea to be a sort of 'spectral' analysis, whereas David's reply seems to imply a 'temporal' analysis. At least, I understand Kieren to be wondering "what is the distribution of pitches assigned to a given instrument throughout this score?" or less technically, what portion of each instrument's range does this score utilize? This is somewhat like a "weighted ambitus" as shown perhaps by a bell curve which shows not only the highest and lowest pitches, but also includes the weighting of which pitches are used more frequently than others. David's comment makes me wonder, "what group of instruments are likely to be playing [at all; and how loudly] during any given moment of the score, and how does the instrumentation (possibly including the relative density [note count, dynamics]) change through the timeline of the score?" This makes my mind's eye envision a line graph with dynamics as a dependent variable of time, and differently colored (or dotted/dashed) lines showing the relative amplitude (dynamics) of each instrument or group of instruments (strings/brass/woodwinds/percussion, kazoo/washtub/spoons, whatever). Not that I'm putting this on anyone's to-do list! I just wanted to compliment both brainstormers for posing some interesting questions. _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
