Re: R shorthand

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> While answering Helge's post about multi-measure rests, I had a couple
> of R-elated observations/thoughts:
>
> 1. We shouldn't be encouraging code like R4*3 in a 4/4 measure, right?
> So the duration ultimately makes no sense anyway.
> 2. The most elegant solution would be to use R (i.e., with no
> duration) to represent a multimeasure rest, and it would "adapt" in
> duration to whatever time signature was in force at that moment.
> 3. Then R14 (e.g.) would represent 14 *measures*, not beats/counts —
> again, simpler, more elegant, and certainly more intuitive than the
> current situation.
>
> Would it be difficult to implement such a scheme (play-on-words
> intended)?

One idea is that this makes it easy to switch between r and R.  Also, R
is something that editors treat like note names.

We could promote using R1*3/4*14 in the documentation (for 5 measures of
3/4).  That's reasonably brainless, but indeed more verbose than
desirable.

Or we could offer \tacet 14 without any relation to durations.

-- 
David Kastrup