Re: Is there a bug in the way Lilypond handles staccatos?

[David Wright]

On Mon 15 Feb 2016 at 14:53:18 (-0500), Devin wrote:
> @Urs, Klaus, and Andrew
> 
> Thank you very much!
> 
> This makes sense now (I guess Lilypond does not need to be a "programming
> language" per se and that is where the confusion is). I will add your replies
> to our Music Blocks discussion thread so that everyone from our team is in the
> loop about this.

No, LilyPond _is_ a programming language. Many programming languages
have syntactic elements such as { } to structure the code into blocks
which are manipulated as a single item (usually a sequence, like notes
(the default in LilyPond), lyrics, markup, or whatever).

The { } characters affect how what lies between them is processed;
they aren't elements of the music itself, but only of the source code.
In the following, they have nothing to do with music at all:

\layout {
  indent = 0
  \context {
    \Score
    \omit BarNumber
  }
  \context {
    \GrandStaff
    \numericTimeSignature
    systemStartDelimiter = #'SystemStartBracket
    \override SystemStartBracket.collapse-height = #1
    \remove Span_bar_engraver
    \accepts Lyrics
  }
}

However, the ( [ ) ] are semantic elements. They denote slurs and
beams which are printed in the music. Because slurs and beams have
a starting and a finishing point, they _happen_ to be paired, but that
pairing is a property of the printed music, not the LilyPond language.

Try removing a brace: you'll get an error straight away while parsing
the code. Try removing a slur: the code will parse perfectly, but
you'll get an error later on while interpreting the music.

The ) in
    a'4( b'4 \tuplet 3/2 { a'8  b'8  c'8  } )
is meaningless because you can't attach one slur to a sequence
of three notes. You have to pick which note terminates the slur:
    a'4( b'4) \tuplet 3/2 { a'8  b'8  c'8  } )
    a'4( b'4  \tuplet 3/2 { a'8) b'8  c'8  } )
    a'4( b'4  \tuplet 3/2 { a'8  b'8) c'8  } )
    a'4( b'4  \tuplet 3/2 { a'8  b'8  c'8) } )
    a'4( b'4  \tuplet 3/2 { a'8  b'8  c'8  } x) where x might be any number of 
notes.

Whether to attach the [ ( ] ) elements to the notes (as I have done
above) is a matter of taste. However, whitespace round the " { "
and " } " is most certainly advised (because occasionally essential).

Cheers,
David.