Re: Doc: Some miscellaneous suggestions from Peter Toye (issue 579280043 by address@hidden)

[lilypond]

Sunday, February 9, 2020, 4:15:53 PM, you wrote:

> On 2020/02/09 15:32:14, lilypond_ptoye.com wrote:

>> Surely "standard scale pitch or previously altered pitch". In D major:
> "cis c
>> cis" the first note is an alteration but not an accidental, the second
> is an
>> accidental but not an alteration, the third is both. Now I'm really
> splitting
>> hairs.

> I read this as "In D major the note c _is_ an accidental".
> Or did you mean _has_ an accidental?

Er, yes.

>> I'm beginning to think that this is all getting too theologial. I'm a
> practising
>> musician, not a theorist, and I raised the point as I'd never heard of
>> 'alteration' used in this rather technical sense. If people are happy
> with the
>> distinction let's just keep it and I withdraw my suggestion.

> Wait. If we try to improve the docs we need to
> care about best wordings,
> so that people speaking different language and with different musical
> education understand what we want to express.

> Furthermore we need to explain how we do things in LilyPond.
> Look at:
> mus = { \key d \major cis'4 }
> #(display-scheme-music (car (music-pitches mus)))
> #(display-scheme-music (ly:pitch-alteration
> (car (music-pitches mus))))
=>>
> (ly:make-pitch 0 0 1/2)
> 1/2

> First how the cis is seen in LilyPond, second
> the alteration. (ofcourse
> no Accidental is printed in pdf)
> Do the same with note c and you see no
> alteration, i.e. 0 (ofcourse an
> Accidental is printed)
> Do similar with c and cis (and you see the
> alteration for cis again and
> an accidental for cis is printed)

> This is absolutely inline with my thinking.
> Though, c itself in D major can't be called an accidental.
> In my book an Accidental is always the printed ♯-sign or ♭-sign or
> natural or double-sharp/flat, nothing else, never the note itself.

> Furthermore in german we have the distinction
> between "Vorzeichen" and
> "Versetzungszeichen", in lilypond that would be the accidental-grobs
> from KeySignature and the additional "on the
> fly"  Accidentals in music.

> I think it's worth the discussion.

Thanks - I'm not a German speaker so was totally unaware of the distinction. 
But my original point was that I've never heard of 'alteration' being used in a 
technical sense for what I suppose could be called the 'black notes'. Now - 
there's an idea for the section heading :)

Peter









> https://codereview.appspot.com/579280043/