Re: Key and accidentals in Lilypond

[Rune Zedeler]

"s.abeccara" wrote:

> When I state a key for a piece in Lilypond I expect it to follow
> common rules for writing music,

Lilypond DOES follow common notational behaviour.
You specify which notes the music should contain, and then lilypond
decides how to typeset the accidentals on basis of the specified key
signature.
If you want a cis then you specify cis. If you want a c then you specify
c.
I cannot understand that you find it logical that lilypond should
produce a cis when you wrote c. This way the actual music would change
when you were changing the key signature.
If you for instance after finishing a piece i g \major realised that the
original composer were typesetting it in g \mixolydian then your
approach would mean that fis were changed into f in the entire piece -
and you would have to manually replace all this "by hand".
A very important design principle in lilypond is that notation and music
should be as separate as possible.
The key signature has to do with notation. - You might find that you
need to typeset the same music in different key signatures. Your
approach - changing the music on basis on the key sig - would mean that
this would be impossible.

Btw, how would you in d-major specify a natural c - if you really wanted
c to refer to cis?


If you are tired of writing all thoes is'es and es'es then the imho best
solution is to write the music in c major or a minor - and then use the
transpose command to move the music to the right position.


-Rune