Re: Confusion about beaming

[Marc Schonbrun]

On Sep 6, 2010, at 9:57 PM, Peter Chubb wrote:

>>>>>> "Marc" == Marc Schonbrun <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> Marc> Hello, I was wondering about why the decision was made in the
> Marc> input syntax parser to view beaming groups as follows:
> 
> 
> Marc> \relative { c8 d [e f g a b c] }
> 
> Marc> The above snippet beams from the d through to the final c. At
> Marc> first glance, it would appear that the brackets are encasing the
> Marc> e through c, and those notes would end up beamed together, but,
> Marc> alas, this is not the case.
> 
> LilyPond used to do treat brackets (for beaming) and parentheses (for
> slurs and grouping) as grouping operators.  It was decided at one
> point to change as much of the syntax as possible to be postfix -- so
> `[' isn't a grouping symbol outside the start of a group, but a
> `start-beam' operator attached to the note it follows.  Likewise (
> isn't a grouping symbol but a 'start-slur' operator attached to the
> note it follows.  If these symbols are treated as paired grouping operators,
> it's difficult to handle nesting properly --- beams, slurs and phrase
> marks are all independent groups.
> 
> This leaves { and } the only real grouping symbols, and they have to
> nest strictly.  But slurs, phrasemarks and beams can span groups, and
> each other.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Dr Peter Chubb                                  peter DOT chubb AT 
> nicta.com.au
> http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au               ERTOS within National ICT 
> Australia
> All things shall perish from under the sky/Music alone shall live, never to 
> die


Peter,

Thank you for the explanation. It's just something I need to get used to.

Thanks,
Marc