Re: Missing fretboard orientation option

[Carl D. Sorensen]

On 12/21/08 12:37 AM, "John Sellers" <address@hidden> wrote:

>> I'm not top posting.
> There is a problem with landscape orientation of a fretboard in 2.11.65.
> 
> % begin sample
>  s1^\markup {
>      \fret-diagram-terse #"x;3-3;2-2;o;1-1;o;"
>      "    normal"
>  }
>  s1^\markup {
>      \override #'(fret-diagram-details . ( (orientation . landscape) ))
>      \fret-diagram-terse #"x;3-3;2-2;o;1-1;o;"
>      "    landscape"
>  }
> % end sample
> 
> This is literally a matter of point of view because if a regular guitar player
> who bends his/her head forward and down to look over the instrument back at
> his/her own fretboard, the 2.11.65-landscape most closely matches what will be
> seen.
> 
> However, a very useful orientation, and perhaps, the most useful orientation
> is
> not allowed.
> 
> To explain:
> 
> The Fretboard orientation allows two options: normal and landscape.
> 
> The normal view is with the nut at the top, just as if a guitar were placed in
> the same orientation of the printed Fretboard.  The 2.11.65-landscape
> orientation is similar to the 2.11.65-normal orientation rotated 90 degrees in
> the sense of a clock facing the observer.
> 
> Unfortunately the 2.11.65-landscape option produces a image that is upside
> down
> to how a conventional guitar play plays a conventional instrument.  You see,
> for most guitarists, a printed fretboard in 2.11.65-landscape the lowest
> string
> on the bottom instead of the top, thus possibly causing confusion.  On the
> other hand, a left-handed guitar player with a regular guitar would not be any
> better off with the notation since the fingerings would have to be different
> from most players.
> 
> The practice of one fine, world-class Jazz guitar player is to write the
> fretboard notation with the nut to the right. This notation would be the same
> as rotating the current landscape notation by 180 degrees about an axis
> perpendicular to the paper.
> 
> This approach makes good sense because Jazz players often play by ear, and
> they
> often teach each other by showing each other new fingerings while playing.
> When the fretboard of another player is observed in this way, for almost all
> players the nut will appear to be on the observer's right, with the lowest
> string on the top.  From the standpoint of an observer of a guitar player,
> this
> most closely matches the before mentioned orientation of rotating the
> landscape-2.11.65 orientation 180 degrees about an axis perpendicular to the
> paper.
> 
> Such players will have long experience in interpreting another players
> fingering in exactly this orientation, and that experience would make the
> suggested orientation much easier for them to read.
> 

This orientation is doable.  We can add it as a new orientation.  Let's call
it opposing-landscape.

Valentin, can you add this to the tracker as a feature request?

My first thought was that this would have to wait until 2.14, because of the
syntax change.  However, my second thought is that we can do it now, because
it's *new* syntax, not changed syntax -- no convert-ly rule is necessary.

Release meister Graham, am I correct in this assessment?

Carl