Re: AccidentalCautionary in NullVoice

[Dan Eble]

On Aug 10, 2014, at 14:55 , Keith OHara <address@hidden> wrote:

>> With NullVoice accepted by Staff, I am able to use NullVoice \with { 
>> <dynamics engravers> } to overcome another shortcoming of part-combined 
>> music, which is that simultaneous dynamics in the two source voices are lost 
>> if the notes to which they are attached are moved [by \partcombine?] into 
>> the shared voice.  My workaround fails when the NullVoice is accepted by 
>> Score instead of Staff.
>> 
> You could then enter \accepts NullVoice into just those Staffs where you use 
> this technique.
> (Usually, \partcombine refuses to change the voicing during dynamics, 
> resulting more often in doubled dynamics;  I didn't know it would lose 
> dynamics.)

Doh!  I just remembered that I’m not using the default functions for generating 
the part combiner split list.  I’m using 2.16(?) with my own modifications that 
make it look better for vocal music.  I’ll test the default and provide an 
example.  Maybe I need to merge the scheme code from the newer release into my 
own.

>> Also, the documentation should probably include \killCues on the notes 
>> within NullVoice.  Without it, there are warnings and extra notes in a score 
>> that has cues.  (Unless there’s something that could be done to NullVoice to 
>> make \killCues unnecessary.)
> 
> Here, I think it would be much better advice to enter the music so that the 
> notes intended for NullVoice are not fed into \addQuote.   That would seem 
> more natural if NullVoice is entered outside of the \new Staff <<..>>.  I 
> don't use lyrics so have trouble imagining a practical example.
> 
> The NullVoice context does not have any natural way to know that notes sent 
> to it, are also being sent to \addQuote, nor to apply \killCues in some other 
> context that uses \cueDuring on that qoute.

I suspect that if defining separate music with and without cues were better, 
\killCues would not exist.  If it’s not going to appear in the example, it 
should at least be mentioned as a known issue.

>> I’m also trying to figure out if there is a simple way to add MIDI 
>> performance to NullVoice.
> 
>> Should there be a simpler pre-packaged way to do this?
> 
> Currently, NullVoice provides the correct timing for MIDI output of any 
> Lyrics attached to it, without sending any note-events to MIDI.  That seems 
> to be what we should expect from an otherwise-invisible voice.
> 
> The most clear way of sending the notes, unprinted in the score to MIDI is 
> with a separate \score for MIDI output, in which we put those notes 
> (presumably stored in a variable) in a regular Voice.

That’s what I’ve done in the past, but it does seem more convenient to add 
\midi{} to the main score than to add a secondary score for the audio.  If I 
have a secondary score for the audio, it doesn’t matter how NullVoice handles 
the lyrics, but I guess it would still be useful for people who keep the 
Staff_performer in the Staff context.

I will probably stick with defining my own context that is engraved like 
NullVoice but performed like Voice.
— 
Dan