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Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond
From: |
James Harkins |
Subject: |
Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond |
Date: |
Tue, 17 Oct 2017 09:11:23 +0800 |
User-agent: |
Zoho Mail |
> On 16 Oct 2017 20:38, "Ken Williams" <address@hidden> wrote:
> I honestly did not expect this kind of response, and I'm getting it from
> multiple people. I asked a technical question and got a whole bunch of
> "answers" saying I'm stupid to try to achieve that effect. Except for
> Kieren hinting that it will probably be difficult, there has been *zero*
> actual discussion about the technical aspects of it.
>
> If LilyPond or its community isn't friendly to people who want to
> experiment with notation, I guess I'm finding that out pretty quickly.
John Zorn once said (paraphrasing from memory), "The job of a composer is to
put something on paper that inspires the people playing it."
I really love this. It reminds us that a musical score is a communication -- a
relationship. If the score compromises its communication by being unclear -- if
the players have to divert mental energy into reinterpreting the written
material -- it takes energy away from inspiration and hurts the performance.
(Relatedly, composers like Ferneyhough use the difficulty of their notation
itself to create a relationship where the performers' struggle to realize the
demand becomes part of the energy of the performance.)
I can see how some of the comments on this thread came across like, "You're
doing it wrong," and this could seem like hostility toward the idea of
experimenting with notation. I read it a bit differently. The commenters are
expressing concern that you may have unpleasant surprises when you get into
rehearsal. Some expressed this with sarcasm, which usually doesn't come across
well in e-mail. But I think the motivation is sound: Choose the notation that
will convey the meaning with the least chance of misunderstanding, at the very
least saving rehearsal time, and also freeing up the performers to *make music*
rather than think about notation.
hjh
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, (continued)
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, David Kastrup, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, David Wright, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Ken Williams, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Guy Stalnaker, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, David Kastrup, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Simon Albrecht, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Karlin High, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Kieren MacMillan, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, Chris Yate, 2017/10/16
- Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond, David Wright, 2017/10/16
Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond,
James Harkins <=