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Re: New Essay:nitpicking
From: |
Jonathan Wilkes |
Subject: |
Re: New Essay:nitpicking |
Date: |
Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:53:43 -0700 (PDT) |
Hi Alexander,
On your point about technical restrictions: I would just say that by the
time a musician becomes a professional he/she has
read thousands of scores with rounded notes, non-pointy angles, heavy dynamics
font, etc.
I think "beauty" in this sense is of the practical variety, not the poetic
or
ethereal type. I mean if you wrote an orchestral score in which each dynamic
looked unique and had a little marginalia creature embedded in it, it would
definitely be a beautiful score that would be fun to examine. But it would be
a
pain to conduct from-- i.e., not so beautiful in that sense.
When a musician has told me, "your score looks great/excellent/beautiful"
I
think what they mean is, "thank you for considering my (likely failing) vision
and
making the music as clear and easy to read as possible so I can spend more time
playing music, which I obviously love, and less time doing what amounts to
bookkeeping-- clearing up ambiguities/misprints, adjusting my eyes to a weird
font, trying not to be distracted by stems that are too heave/light, squinting
at
hair-thin lines, etc."
-Jonathan
--- On Wed, 4/21/10, Alexander Deubelbeiss <address@hidden> wrote:
From: Alexander Deubelbeiss <address@hidden>
Subject: New Essay:nitpicking
To: address@hidden
Date: Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 10:44 PM
I became aware of the Essay rewrite through the bug list and had a quick
read-through of the new text. I agree it's an improvement over the old one, but
would like to point out three minor matters.
Typo: In the penultimate paragraph of _1.3 Automated engraving - Getting things
right_, please replace "acceptible" with "acceptable" (twice)
Typo: In _1.4 Building software - Music representation_, replace "heirarchical"
with "hierarchical" (just before the music example preceding the Tidy Structure
of Nested Boxes illustration)
Finally, for a less clear-cut problem: I can't follow the argument about sharp
points in _1.2 Engraving details - Music fonts_ (the paragraph after the
illustration comparing Opus with Feta/Emmentaler).
In the middle of a discussion of legibility and beauty in music fonts, a design
choice (non-pointy angles) is justified through a technical restriction
(fragile dies) that doesn't apply in a computer-based printing context. I'll
happily agree that the Lilypond variety "just looks nicer", but if nobody can
come up with a concise explanation to put in the essay, I'd suggest not
mentioning the matter at all. The current text produces a somewhat fanboyish
impression, justifying a design detail with "because The Masters did it that
way" even while admitting that said Masters' reasons for choosing their
solution no longer apply.
... <shrug> or leave it, I guess. I think the old essay had roughly the same
text there, and it doesn't seem to have provoked any complaints.
--
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- New Essay:nitpicking, Alexander Deubelbeiss, 2010/04/21
- Re: New Essay:nitpicking,
Jonathan Wilkes <=