Re: A few remarks concerning \relative

[Janek Warchoł]

2011/9/12 Benkő Pál <address@hidden>:
>> \relative x??? { x
>> Namely start with the starting pitch.
>
> my two cents: I always do that.

And my two cents: I never do that.
My rationale: in an (admittedly quite rare) case i want to paste the
contents of one relative to another relative, having various starting
pitches forces me to think how i should modify the octavation of the
first note when i move it around.  If everything is related to c* (or
another pitch, as long as it's the same everywhere), the calculation
is quite simple.
An example: i'm typesetting simple SATB pieces from time to time.  At
the beginning my initial template setup was
soprano = \relative c'' { }
alto = \relative f' {  }
tenor = \relative c' {  }
bass = \relative f {  }
because i felt that these pitches are roughly in the middle of each
voice tessitura (and therefore using them minimized the chance of
having an octavation mark at the first note).  But then i've often ran
into a situation like this: I enter soprano part
soprano = \relative c'' { e, a c b g2 }
Then i look at the alto part and see "oh, it's the same" so i copy&paste it:
alto = \relative f' { e, a c b g2 }
aaand... oops, wrong octave!


2011/9/11 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
> It requires thinking if you have not yet come across it.  If the
> documentation (tutorial _and_ notation) mentions it prominently, it
> should be idiomatic enough.

That's quite possible.


2011/9/12 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
> I am still curious whether this idiom might be worth popularizing.

The more i think about it, the more i like it.

cheers,
Janek