Re: A few remarks concerning \relative

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:44:33AM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Now I don't like having two different syntaxes for \relative,
>> but I guess Graham would kill me if I proposed just leaving
>> \relative { ... } in place with a new meaning.
>
> Yeah, that's so not happening.  Come up with a different name and
> we'll talk.
>
>> He'd have to learn absolute note names,
>
> Since I don't use lilypond myself, that's not an issue.
>
>> and every existing Lilypond source would become invalid or change its
>> meaning.
>
> That's the issue.
>
>
> I'm reluctant to add the suggestion of \relative f' {  to the
> tutorial since all the examples are variants of c.

Personally, I don't think \relative f' is all that interesting.  The
really idiomatic phrase is \relative f without octave indicators.

> I'm also reluctant to have a huge long discussion about something as
> fundamental as note entry without a *lot* more advertising (i.e.
> GLISS).  I'm willing to have a separate music function, documented in
> Notation but not Learning, which behaves like you're suggesting.  This
> could even become the default way to do stuff in lilypond 3.0.

Hm?  \relative f is already there.

I'd propose something like

commit 7de0ef57bddb16e422c8d79e7dc293be43a48cdd
Author: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
Date:   Mon Sep 12 03:08:18 2011 +0200

    leaning.itely: add a musing about \relative f

diff --git a/Documentation/learning/tutorial.itely 
b/Documentation/learning/tutorial.itely
index 6752a3b..aa6c147 100644
--- a/Documentation/learning/tutorial.itely
+++ b/Documentation/learning/tutorial.itely
@@ -287,6 +287,12 @@ To change a note by two (or more!) octaves, we use multiple
 quotes @code{''} and not one double quote @code{"address@hidden
 @c " - keeps quotes in order for context-sensitive editor -td
 
+If you carefully consider all the rules above and remember that the
+octave of absolute pitches also is specified disregarding any
+accidentals, one rather interesting consequence is that the first note
+in @address@hidden f}} music is interpreted just the same as in
+absolute pitch mode.
+
 @subheading Durations (rhythms)
 
 @cindex note durations

and I don't see the point in hiding this information from beginners out
of fear that they might like it.

-- 
David Kastrup