Re: absolute pitch entry: accept an offset octave (issue 235010043 by address@hidden)

[Francisco Vila]

2015-05-05 8:58 GMT+02:00 Valentin Villenave <address@hidden>:
> On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 12:25 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
>> This kind of addition would likely get
>> the most useful feedback from people *teaching* LilyPond.  We don't have
>> a lot of those unless you count "batch teachers", namely documentation
>> writers.
>
> Paco would be the obvious person to ask. (Hi Paco!)
>
> Speaking as someone who regularly gives LilyPond initiation seminars
> for adults and childrens, the hardest part is explaining to them why
> \relative mode is not on by default.

Hi, yes, I'm here. Honestly you now qualify better for someone
teaching LIlyPond. I had groups of twenty-something students for some
years a time ago and I'd like very much to retake that duty anytime
soon.  From that experience I'd say that among beginners, a lot of
confussion  would be created from more commands that do the same with
slightly different syntax and do not add anything really new.

I love \relative mode because it fits perfectly with a certain kind of
content. But if relative mode didn't exist, people would be much more
efficcient using clever combinations of \transpose and sequential
expressions.

What I hate about \relative is having to check manually the correct
octave of something you entered supposedly once and forever, which
tends to kill the main advantage of the whole text approach: its
roubstness.  True robustness would mean changing the last note of an
expression and never expect this changed the octave of the  next whole
expression.

\relative is very comfortable and some students expect other aspects
to be equally comfortable, like expecting an e flat in { \key c \minor
c d e } just like FinaleSibelius does. Compared to that, \relative is
a heaven to explain.

What I find to be a heaven is the collection of pitch and rhythm tools
of Frescobaldi. One can always enter the music in relative mode and
convert it to absolute afterwards. Great!

-- 
Francisco Vila. Badajoz (Spain)
www.paconet.org , www.csmbadajoz.com