Re: Substitute for s1*0

[James]

Hello,

On 7 May 2012 06:50, Keith OHara <address@hidden> wrote:
> Trevor Daniels <t.daniels <at> treda.co.uk> writes:
>
>> My point really is that <> exists now, so there ought to
>> be a short note in the section where chords are introduced
>> to say that an empty chord takes no time, whatever the
>> current duration happens to be.
>
> I agree with Trevor.  And with David in liking <>
>
> s1*0 is useful for markup at the beginning of a
> multimeasure rest, quote, or cue, or at the end of a music
> as in "D.S.alCoda".  In these cases, the next note needs
> an explicit duration anyway.
>
> Some people write triplets without the '3' as {c8*2/3 d e}
> so they depend on LilyPond remembering the *n/m with the
> duration.
>
> <> is less transparent, because a thoughtful user would
> expect it to have the same duration of the previous note
> or chord, or to be a syntax error.
>
> On the other hand,
> 1) the chord construct is more familiar than skips

Evidence? 'skip' is exactly what it says on the tin.

'<>' what is that?

We already have

\<

\>

-> -< (and combinatinos of ^-> --> _-< etc.)

I absolutely take Graham's point that having a not uncommon sytax
expression like '<< a4.(\->\<[^<>\markup {hello} \\ ...'  is ugly -
although I was thinking more of the syntax of Brainf**k (or sed) than
Haskel. While s1*0 is not that pretty, it is at least easy to see and,
at least for me anyway, clear of its meaning in an already crowded
mess of non-alphanumeric characters.

Put chorded notes in the mix

<< <a b c>\<^<>"Hello" \\ <a b c> >> (or something like that)

yuk.

> and
>   mulitplied durations are not familiar at all

That's not an argument, that's just bad documentation.

Why would we suddenly become familiar with <> over s1*0? Apart from
the fact I disagree that they are not unfamiliar from and that I
recall I ended up in a debate trying to get a relatively small change
in to \partial documentation where it was implied that everyone knows
about multipliers of duration and that \partial 8*3 was much clearer
an example than \partial 4.

> 2) empty constructs are familiar from
>   \score { ... \layout{} \midi{}}

Apples and Oranges

Plus they are preceded by meaningful statements. They have obvious context.

It is possible to never have to use and of those, personally I never
use \midi and hardly use \layout for my music. So it isn't as natural
to 'get' blank constructs in your music like that as you think.

> 3) its leaving the former default duration unchanged makes
>   it more generally useful:
> { <>\mf \motif c4 d e f <>\p^"softer now" \motif g f e d}

> So <> is a more helpful example for users than s1*0 was,
> if the special case of its duration is noted in NR 1.5.1
>
> Giving it a notation like 'n' for aesthetic purposes would
> be putting lipstick on a pig.

Also isn't this a really a GLISS topic?

Regards

James