Re: "repeat" slashes and the nature of lilypond

[wintryblue]

> There is one kind of syntactic sugar that I have been missing:
> 
> Imagine that you're typesetting a piece with chords, and that Ignatzek (or
> some other chord naming scheme) fits fairly well with what you want. Say 95%
> of the chords are typeset the way you want them, and you're dissatisfied with
> only 5%.
> 
> The proper solution to this, would be to add exceptions, the way it's done in
> chord-modifiers-init.ly. However, one could just want to add a quick hack to
> say what it should look like, something like:
> \once \set ChordNames.markupOverride = \markup { C \majSymbol \super { 7 9 } }
> (this would override the markup for the following chord note, to the given
> markup)
> 
> This would probably be easier for most people, than the complex approach of
> adding the notation as an exception.
> 
> I have sometimes missed a feature like this one, and I can imagine that many
> users would prefer this suggested method to the existing one.
> 
> (this might be possible already; however I haven't figured out how to do it
> yet)
> 
> Erik

The whole concept of chord naming "systems" is, I feel, aesthetically
(and practically) erroneous, since there are no standard systems (at
least not that anybody uses), and the best way to make sure everyone
gets what they want is to have a free-for-all symbol-fest where you
can have 10 different ways of notating the same chord and more, and
they're all equally easy to typeset. No other serious notation program
treats chord symbols as anything other than graphical symbols, since
they know musicians can interpret them a hundred different ways.

If you have to have "exceptions" or work-arounds to get around default
settings, that's a bad system on Lilypond's part. It's equally easy to
get any symbol you want above a notehead in Lilypond, for example. It
should be that way with chord symbols too, if Lilypond really wants to
be appealing to all musicians, and not just those who use Ignatzek
(not that I know any who do.)