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

[Wols Lists]

On 07/05/15 16:19, Paul Morris wrote:
>> On May 7, 2015, at 10:43 AM, Paul Morris <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>  \relative [optional pitch] { ...
>>  \absolute [no pitch] { ...
>>  \octave [obligatory pitch] { …
>>
>> The downside with this is that \absolute is really just a subset of the 
>> functionality of \octave, but they have different names.  \octave c {… is 
>> the same as \absolute {…
> 
> Here's another possibility with just two modes:
> 
>   \relative [optional pitch] {…}
>   \octave [obligatory pitch] {…}
> 
> And then just use \octave c {…} instead of \absolute {…}.
> 
> In most cases one would simply use plain {…} for absolute-entry and would 
> only need to use \octave c {…} when embedding inside \relative {…}.
> 
> (Hmmm… I think I prefer this approach over the others.)
> 
My first reaction on seeing all this was "why are we using a pitch?"
Doesn't lily store notes internally as a duplet of an octave and a
pitch? (forgive me if I'm wrong, that's what I remember from my dabbling).

So I'd be inclined to have just the two modes ...

   \relative [optional pitch] {...}
   [\absolute [optional octave offset]] {...}

and obviously then \absolute would be optional too unless you're using
the octave offset. So when I'm entering my music in the bass clef I
would possibly do something like

   \absolute -1 { c d' e' b }

which simply shifts everything down one octave. That then also saves any
explanation about what [obligatory pitch] means. Does it have to be a
new reference C? What happens if you said, for example, e'? Does that
get understood by lily as c' - shift everything an octave? Or does it
mean "the note above e' absolute is entered as f', the note below is
entered as d"? Specifying the shift as a number makes it clear that it's
relative to the default c', and that's it.

Cheers,
Wol