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Re: why chords with notes of different duration is not supported?


From: Marc Mouries
Subject: Re: why chords with notes of different duration is not supported?
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 23:19:41 -0500
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On 1/12/2011 4:40 AM, Graham Percival wrote:
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 09:15:41AM +0100, Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 12. Januar 2011, um 09:02:19 schrieb Graham Percival:
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 12:04:50AM -0500, Marc Mouries wrote:
i'd like to know about the rationale behind not supporting chords with
notes of different duration.
Because there's no such thing as a chord with notes of different
duration.
But there is a notation for multiple stops that looks like a chord with notes
of different duration.
Before moving to computer science, I was a cello teacher.  And I'm
now playing first violin in an orchestra doing, amongst other
things, Tchaik's Romeo and Juliet.  I also played viola for half
of my music degree.  I'm very familiar with (bowed) string music.
So what's the point of saying "Because there's no such thing as a chord with notes of different duration" ? That does not help the communication.
That's not a chord.  That's multiple voices, and they're simple to
write in lilypond.  Please read the learning manual.
To quote Gardner Read: "Chord notation for string instruments often appears
incorrect to the non-string player."
There's a couple of separate issues here:
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
   arbitrary violinist?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
   expert in music notation?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
   lilypond manual?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
   lilypond internal code (be it scheme or C++)?


A chord is simply several notes played simultaneously and that definition is the same for a violinist, a pianist or a percussion player.



As a violin can only play one note,
two notes, you mean.
yes really simultaneously 2. That's why strings players use the term "double-stop". Double-stop usually have the same duration while playing a 3 or 4 notes chords can be played in different ways. The 1st 2 strings together and then the top 2 together or some other combination. That's the part that is left for interpretation. However it is very frequent that the top note in a chord played by a bowed-string instrument is prolonged onto the next sequence. That the problem #1 i encountered while typesetting some parts of Beethov 5th symphony. The 2nd problem is that in Baroque music the notes of the chord can be written in cascade from top to bottom while later this was no longer used but still played in an arpeggiated mode.



Look, if you want to get a violinist "chord", you do this:
\new Staff \relative c'' {
   <<
     { \voiceOne g,4 }
     { \voiceOne d'4 }
     { \voiceOne b'4 }
     { \voiceOne g'2 }
   >>
}

not hard.
not hard but verbose and not user-friendly.
If the notes are all attached to the same voice why not allowing: << g,4 d'4 b'4 >> ? Of course then to be authentic typesetters will want the ability to adjust the layout of the notes in a) a normal chord with all the notes aligned vertically or b) the notes in staggered rows.
Just look at the 3 measures of this score produced by lilypond:
http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ftp/BachJS/BWV1001/bwv-1001_1/bwv-1001_1-let.pdf

Wrap it up in a music function to make it easier.

If somebody wants to work on adding such a music function to
lilypond itself, send an email to the frog list, or a patch to the
-devel list.  If somebody wants to talk about the lilypond input
syntax -- such as making the<>  construct allow different
durations -- then wait until GLISS.

- Graham

It's probably better to continue this discussion until GLISS then.

-Marc





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