bug-lilypond
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

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.
-- 
GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT!
Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01


_______________________________________________
bug-lilypond mailing list
address@hidden
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-lilypond






reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]