Re: GDP: rearrangement (third attempt)

[Eyolf Østrem]

On 10.09.2007 (05:22), Graham Percival wrote:
> Rune Zedeler wrote:

> >And in all cases, it is way too early. The user has not even learned what 
> >the "4" in "c4" means.

> Tutorial.  If a user hasn't read the LM, they're on their own and I have 
> *no* sympathy for them.

That's definitely the right approach. The *Documentation* should be in
a reference form, arranged according to contents.  This, IMHO, relates
also to the question: bigger or smaller sections/subsections: it is
rarely the case that one has a very specific question which can be
answered by looking at a small subsection. My own usage is to open the
pdf, search through the whole document for some word I expect to be
relevant, and hopefully find the answer, either in some specific
place, or from what I can piece together. I hardly ever use the ToC.
For the same reason, I hardly ever use the one-page-per-subsection
version of the doc.

> ... my general concern with "it isn't musical content, only with how it is 
> displayed" is that most musicians don't make that distinction.  Most 
> people _would_ say that ottava changes pitches.

This is also the right way to go, I think. Whether or not something
CHANGES the pitch, it still has to do with representing pitches, and I
have no problem at all with a main heading "Pitches", which then, if
necessary, can be subdivided into "Entering pitches" and "modifying
the display" or something.

> >I don't think that beams belong in this section - they belong together 
> >with phrasing slurs.

> IMO, beaming is intricately bound up in meter.  I could be convinced 
> otherwise, though.  Anybody else have opinions about this?


> >>         o 8.7 Ancient notation
> >Hmm, not really instrument specific.

> "Specific-purpose notation" ?
> "Notation for limited use" ?

Why not a section of its own? 

> >>         o 9.3 Vocal music
> >If we consider the human voice an instrument, then this is very 
> >instrument specific. Move it to that section.

> That's where it used to be, but singers complained.  :)

And rightly so... :-) If it should go anywhere else, it could perhaps
be together with "Text", since that is (mainly) what distinguishes it
from "normal" music.


Eyolf

-- 
David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my
  judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page.
George Will:  I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages.
  The comics are making no truth claim.
Brinkley:  Where would you put it?
Will:  I wouldn't put it in the newspaper.  I think it's transparent rubbish.
  It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the
  sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe.  We are
  not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care.  The star's alignment
  at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish.  It is not funny to
  have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons.
Sam Donaldson:  This isn't something new.  Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn
  in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars
  said it was a propitious time.
Will:  They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities.  They could apply to
  anyone and anything.
Brinkley:  When is the exact moment [of birth]?  I don't think the nurse is
  standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad.
Donaldson:  If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie
  thing.  People want to know.
-- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988,
   excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan