Re: Support articulations, slurs and breaths in MIDI (issue 26470047)

[David Kastrup]

Dan Eble <address@hidden> writes:

> I think I understand what you are saying; but if I do, it sounds like
> you do not understand me.

Or the other way round.

> I suggest that if a thousand pianists sat down in turn at a keyboard
> controller with a difficult piece of music, and we said, “NO EMOTION:
> Play like a machine!” and we recorded their performances to MIDI
> files; then separately we had Lilypond produce a MIDI file of the
> piece containing the “necessary melodic information”; the results
> would differ.
>
> I suggest that there would be certain things that most of the human
> performances had in common, such as releasing certain notes a little
> earlier than the score called for in order to prepare for upcoming
> notes.  And I maintain that because all the files are MIDI files, it
> is reasonable to say that there is room for the Lilypond MIDI output
> to be more realistic.

LilyPond MIDI output is not intended to "realistically" reflect the
performance of a human player trying to play like a machine.  That's not
useful for anything.  LilyPond MIDI output is intended to realistically
reflect the performance of a machine.

For better or rather worse, it's the main interchange format we have
with other music software, including other music typesetters, MIDI
sequencers, and software intended to make music sound like played by a
human player.

It can serve as a proofhearing aid or a practice aid.  It is not
intended to serve as a substitute for a player when recording.  For
that, LilyPond produces sheet music fit for running through a human.

> It’s not reaching beyond MIDI to nudge the quality of Lilypond output
> in that direction; it doesn’t require sound-file output.

You can nudge the quality of a refrigerator in the direction of an oven,
but that does not mean that you arrive at something that will do
anything well.

-- 
David Kastrup