Re: TimeSignature with note in denominator

[Flaming Hakama by Elaine]

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> To: Kieren MacMillan <kieren@kierenmacmillan.info>
> Cc: Carl Sorensen <c_sorensen@byu.edu>, LilyPond development <
> lilypond-devel@gnu.org>
> Bcc:
> Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2021 20:11:03 +0100
> Subject: Re: TimeSignature with note in denominator
> Kieren MacMillan <kieren@kierenmacmillan.info> writes:
>
> > [David K:]
> >> 8/20 does not specify more than the basic
> >> subdivision for expressing beats (not necessarily identical with the
> >> number of beats as signatures like 9/8 show)
> >
> > Ah, I think I now see where your confusion lies.
>
> It's great that you show so much patience with rank beginners in
> LilyPond.
>
> > The time signatures 8/20 and 9/8 *do* function identically:
> > — the bottom number identifies the duration, *expressed as a fraction
> > of a whole number*, that should be considered the functional division
> > of the measure;
>
> And here is where your plan falls down because LilyPond's definition of
> a duration does not agree with the words you are comfortable throwing
> around because of your education.  What you are thinking of is a Moment,
> the unit in which the _length_ of a duration is expressed.  There is no
> 1:1 mapping between moments and durations: various different durations
> may correspond to a single moment when involving scale factors, and lots
> of moments don't have corresponding durations when you forego scale
> factors.
>
> > — the top number identifies how many functional divisions are required
> > to fill a complete measure.
> >
> > *By convention*, traditional classical music groups the 9
> > one-eighth-of-a-whole-note events into three groups of three each,
> > leading people to say that the duration of a “beat” is equal (in that
> > case) to three eighth notes.
> >
> > The time signature “9/8” does *not* (as you imply) actually convey
> > *any* information about the number of “beats” — the *convention* does
> > that.
>
> I am certain you will be able to provide a definite quote where I
> "imply" any such thing.
>

So, are you claiming that this is a misquote?

[David K:]
> 8/20 does not specify more than the basic
> subdivision for expressing beats (not necessarily identical with the
> number of beats as signatures like 9/8 show)


The feature request is to render 9/8 with an 8th note instead of the
numeral 8 as the denominator.

The feature request is to render 8/20 with a 16th note quintuplet note
instead of the numeral 20 as the denominator.

Why is the subdivision of the measure relevant?


And how is the musical convention of 9/8 being 3 beats implied by the
expression 9/8?




> > I suppose Carl and my surprise (revelation?) is that Lilypond has
> > *never* handled time signatures correctly (where “correct” means
> > “according to the accepted definition of 'time signature'”).
>
> Nor has his ever handled durations correctly according to your
> definition of "duration".  Which means you should get a grip on what
> LilyPond calls a duration before proposing to use it.
>
> --
> David Kastrup
>

So, are you defending incorrect semantics?


The point is that the current implementation does not support the necessary
semantics.

So, you can whine about people not understanding how the implementation
works, but if you want to be helpful, instead, please try to help us
understand what the gap is so that others can work on figuring out how to
address it.

Until we know what's broken, we can't fix it.

Also, the notion that the level of complexity being proposed is somehow
problematic, seems misleading.

Based on the fact that the function can actually take either one or two
arguments, means that there is already some amount of logic based on
detecting argument types.

Suggesting that adding another such condition would be unfeasible is either
untrue, or it means that the current approach is not scalable and is more
of a hack.



Elaine Alt
415 . 341 .4954                                           "*Confusion is
highly underrated*"
elaine@flaminghakama.com
Producer ~ Composer ~ Instrumentalist ~ Educator
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