Re: TimeSignature with note in denominator

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for weighing in!

> I think all of those time signatures can be expressed just as well as a 
> compound meter.

1. I’d love for Lilypond to be capable of respecting the desires of a composer 
(e.g., Orff) in how it displays time signatures.

2. I’m pondering whether 1/6 is superior to 1 / [a single tuplet notehead]… I 
bet if the preceeding measure had a bunch of triplets, the note-denom version 
of 1/6 would be far easier to sight-read / process than the numeric 1/6.

> In looking at this, is seems the lexer (and the propery 
> timeSignatureFraction) are not semantically correct.

I’m so glad you said this. This has been a vague rumbling feeling in the pit of 
my stomach for the whole thread, and you finally put into words what’s been 
bothering me about the whole thing!

> I'm not sure it is worth the work to get semantically correct, but 
> semantically, \time 4/4 should not be a fraction of two integers; it should 
> be a pair of a count and a duration.

Yes!

> And if we had semantically correct time signature entry, Kieren's wish for a 
> different display for the duration would be relatively straightforward

… which likely accounts for my naïvely optimistic hopes about how the feature 
might be implemented.  =)

> we could not tell the difference between 8.~8 and 8~8., although I can't 
> imagine how the difference between these two representations would be 
> important; both represent a duration of 5 eighth-notes.

3/16 + 2/16 != 2/16 + 3/16   ;)0

> I'm not sure that it's worth changing the internals since they work so well 
> for the lilypond core functionality (traditional western music)

I fear you’re correct… but I do love that I’m not the only one that hasn’t 
totally given up the dream.

Cheers,
Kieren.