Re: \relative versus \absolute (was "Re: Macro/multiply notes")

[Mark Polesky]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:48 PM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:

David Nalesnik <address@hidden> writes:

> I just discovered that typesetting a piano piece which constantly uses
> temporary voices is much easier in absolute mode. Switching from voice
> to voice no longer gives any register surprises.
>
> Absolute mode also tempts me to skip a few measures when I want to
> procrastinate tackling a difficult spot but still want to keep
> working.

Well, there is always \resetRelativeOctave, and after getting the
octaves wrong, at most one note needs changing to get back into synch
anyway.

While the make-relative macro can help a lot, designing music
manipulating macros that don't do surprising things in \relative mode is
also tricky.

One can also use octave checks in relative mode:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/changing-multiple-pitches#octave-checks