Re: GDP: rearrangement (third attempt)

[John Mandereau]

Le lundi 10 septembre 2007 à 05:22 -0700, Graham Percival a écrit :
> Rune Zedeler wrote:
> > Very first I comment on the stuff I wrote below: When I wrote it I 
> > didn't really notice / think about the fact the the first five sections 
> > are left out. Probably some of my comments are not totally valid. Well, 
> > I will think some more, and post another message about the overall 
> > structure of the manual.
> 
> As I said earlier,
> 
> - the manual will be split even more into Learning Manual / Notation
>   Reference.  This is the notation reference, so we assume that users
>   have read the LM.  They know about music expressions, \override, etc.
>   The LM will be increased to accomodate for this, but that's a separate
>   discussion.
> 
> 
> The division between Basic/Advanced was a somewhat artificial thing for 
> newbies reading the NR for the first time.  But the main use of the NR 
> is to be a *reference* -- ie knowledgeable users look stuff up in it. 
> So I don't think it's worth putting things in a weird order for just to 
> make it easier for new users -- the Learning Manual is the place for 
> them, and that document most definitely *can* and *should* be read from 
> start to finish.

I totally agree with you on these points.




> >>                + 6.4.7 Proportional notation (introduction)
> > 
> > No, this is too layout specific for this section. It has nothing to do 
> > with the musical content, only with how it is displayed.
> 
> Trevor already proposed deleting this entirely.

Shall I go ahead and remove this in master?  I'd add the LSR links in
the deleted subsec to "Proportional notation" in chapter "Spacing
issues".


> ... 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.
> 
> OTOH, we try to enforce this mentality in our discussion about key 
> signatures.  Hmm, what would think about
> 
> 6.1 Pitches
> 6.2 Displaying pitches
> (move Transpose into 6.1)
> 6.3 Rhythms
> 6.4 Displaying rhythms
> 6.5 Bars
> (strictly speaking Bars would be a subset of Displaying rhythms, but I 
> think this section works well by itself, with bar numbers, multi-measure 
> rests, and the like all together)

I really like these section names.  Let's adopt them!



> >>                + 6.4.8 Automatic beams
> >>                + 6.4.9 Manual beams
> >>                + 6.4.10 Feathered beams
> > 
> > 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?

No, I just second your opinion here too.



> >>          o 8.6 Bowed strings
> >>                + 8.6.1 Artificial harmonics
> > 
> > Well, isn't this also used in classical guitar? I am not sure, though.
>
> I used to get into arguments with a classical guitarist about what 
> artificial vs. harmonics meant.  He thought they were opposite to what 
> orchestral string players did, and I have no knowledge of guitar 
> terminology so I couldn't be certain that he was wrong about that 
> instrument.  To avoid these matters, I called it "artificial harmonics 
> (strings)"

I've played with a classical guitarist for one year, and in two pieces
we played there were artifical harmonics (or if you want to avoid
arguments let's call them just "harmonics").  I'm sure anybody who wants
to notate harmonics for the guitar will most probably get enough
inspiration to look for "harmonics" in the index or look for harmonics
in the section about strings.  That's why we can keep harmonics in the
strings section.


> >>          o 9.4 Titles and headers
> > 
> > I would like a "Page layout" chaper, where this section should go. 
> > Mentioning "multi scores in one files" would also fit nicely in there, 
> > along with the discussion of the paper- and layout-blocks.
> 
> I agree with this, but not very strongly yet.  John, Valentin?  You guys 
> wanted this in Text; feel like defending this position?  :)

Yes.  After arguments brought in this discussion, I can propose (without
being fully convinced):

9 Text (or "Text and vocal music" or "Text and lyrics", I don't mind)
   9.1 Text in a score
   9.2 Text markup
   9.3 Vocal music

10 Input and output (like in Graham's first proposal)

11 Page layout (new chapter)
   11.1 Paper and pages (moved from Spacing issues)
   11.2 Titles and headers
   11.3 Breaks (moved from Spacing issues)

The problem is, this breaks the unity of Spacing stuff in a single
chapter, and if we do this, we must have a look at the subsections to be
moved (which I haven't done here in my naive proposal).

Without spacing stuff (can anything else be added to this chapter,
btw?), a chapter about page layout containing only "Titles and headers"
would be too small, so IMHO it's not a so good idea.  Rune, we welcome a
better and more precise proposal, though ;-)

Any comments on this?

Cheers,
John