Re: [proposal] easy triplets and tuplets - Draft 3

[Janek Warchoł]

Hi,

wow, many more emails arrived!  Let me send my thoughts written in the
meantime, and go back offline for a few hours.

i've found a reason why i could support "reversed" tuplet ratio: if we
decide to allow arbitrary integer durations (so that a3 would mean a
third of the whole note), it would make more sense to have { a3 b6 }
equivalent to \tuplet 3/2 { a2 b4 } rather than have it equivalent to
\tuplet 2/3 { a2 b4 }.  In other words, in LilyPond we express
duration using the /denominator/ of the fraction, so it makes sense to
multiply duration 2 (half note) by 3/2 to get duration 3 (a triplet).
Do you see what i mean?

However, if we reverse the argument in \tuplet, we definitely should
deprecate \times.  Having both \times 2/3 and \tuplet 3/2 for
specifying triplets would be *very* confusing.

I agree that specifying not just x/y ratio but also x/y "of what?" is
a good idea.  I don't have any idea on how the actual syntax might
look like, though.

As for transposing clefs, i play guitar a bit myself, and i have once
typeset a piece using both G and G_8 clefs.  Maybe it was a bad idea,
but for me it was perfectly fine.

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:16 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
<address@hidden> wrote:
> If you _did_ insist on the distinction between those clefs being important,
> it would be very problematic because then as a guitarist (or piccolist, or
> bass player, or conductor) you'd have to spend lots of time worrying about
> whether the omission of that "8" on the clef actually meant something or was
> just a typo.  Whereas as things are, you can just ignore it.
>
> Now think about extending that to other transposing instruments.  Should a
> bass clarinet be notated in \treble sounding a 12th below what is written,
> or in \treble_8 sounding a 2nd below?  Isn't the important thing (as player
> or conductor) that you never have to worry about it?

It seems that our opinions on this subject are totally opposite.
While i definitely agree that the important thing is that performers
don't have to worry about this issue, in my opinion the *only* way to
ensure this is to state clef transpositions explicitely.  After all,
it doesn't cost you anything to write them.
For me, what we currently have is a holly mess.  There are some areas
where ambiguity can be your goal, but i don't see how it could be
here.  In my opinion it is *infinitely* better to write down the
information than to leave it to the performer to guess it based on
tradition.
For example, despite the fact that i'm an amateur musician (guitar &
voice), i had learned note names quickly.  However, for *many years* i
had no idea that some instruments are transposed.  Had i tried to play
a transposed instrument, i would play exactly what was written.  When
i learned that some instruments are transposed *and that the
transposition isn't marked in the notation*, i felt it was outrageous.
 I still believe it was a foolish idea to start notating transposing
instruments in this way, i.e. without any indication next to the clef
(no idea who started it, though :P).
For example, the horn transposition can be either a fourth or a fifth.
 For me this is nonsense: you want to play from some old score, but
you have to ask a musicologist to be sure what the notes actually are
:(

I hope that this email hadn't become too sarcastic or disparaging :/


On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:16 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Don't know about you, but I find they always seem to be most tempting to
> write whenever I have something else really important (work, study,
> planning, big life change ...) upcoming that I should really be
> concentrating on :-P

true :P  but my conscience is clean this time, as i wrote this email
when commuting, without internet access :)

cheers,
Janek