Re: lilypond/Documentation/user advanced-notation.i...

[Trevor Bača]

On 2/21/06, Mats Bengtsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> Quoting Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
>
> > CVSROOT:      /sources/lilypond
> > Module name:  lilypond
> > Branch:
> > Changes by:   Graham Percival <address@hidden>    06/02/21 08:14:06
> >
> > Modified files:
> >       Documentation/user: advanced-notation.itely
> >
> > Log message:
> >       More make-moment explanation.
> >
> > CVSWeb URLs:
> > http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/lilypond/lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely.diff?tr1=1.79&tr2=1.80&r1=text&r2=text
> >
> > Patches:
> > Index: lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely
> > diff -u lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely:1.79
> > lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely:1.80
> > --- lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely:1.79  Tue Feb
> > 21 04:48:03 2006
> > +++ lilypond/Documentation/user/advanced-notation.itely       Tue Feb 21
> > 08:14:06 2006
> > @@ -1739,6 +1739,11 @@
> > c4 c1
> > @end lilypond
> >
> > address@hidden
> > +As the example illustrates, @code{make-moment n m} constructs
> > +a duration of n*m notes, where n is any integer and m is a
> > +lilypond duration.
>
> Sorry to say, but at least I don't understand this text, I think
> one or two examples explain much better. Also, the mathematics doesn't
> really make sense, I would say that the duration is n/m. Finally, your
> text seems to indicate that you can say
> (make-moment 3 (make-moment 2 4)), which isn't true. I propose something like:
> As the example illustrates, @code{ly:make-moment n m} constructs a
> duration of n/m, for example @code{ly:make-moment 1 8} is an eight note
> duration and @code{ly:make-moment 7 16} is the duration of seven
> sixteenths notes.

I like Mats's gloss of "n/m" and it might help even further to add the
qualifier "of a whole note", so: "As the example illustrates,
@code{ly:make-moment n m} constructs a duration equal to n/m of a
whole note. For example, @code{ly:make-moment 1 8} constructs a
duration equal to one eighth-note (or 1/8 of a whole note) and
@code{ly:make-moment 7 16} constructs a duration equal to seven
sixteenth-notes (or 7/16 of a whole note)."

The docs do specifically mention that durations are always fractions
of a whole note, but it probably bears repeating local to the
explanation of make-moment.

(FWIW, this is one of the things that, imo, Lily really strongly gets
right compared to, for example, Sibelius: *all* durations measure in
fractions of a whole note, which makes even unusual meters like 5/7 no
problem.)


--
Trevor Bača
address@hidden