Is the flageolet symbol too big?

[Martín Rincón Botero]

With the experience I had making this merge request
https://gitlab.com/lilypond/lilypond/-/merge_requests/1524 I make myself
the same question that I had with accents: is the flageolet symbol too big?
At first sight I would say yes. The documentation even includes tips for
making it smaller (in fact bringing the flageolet symbol to a size that I
guess many users expect to see). I don't think I've seen any particular
request from users wanting the symbol smaller by default. The only thread I
could find regarding the topic was this
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2016-06/msg00122.html, not
really a request. It could be that because of the fact that the snippet to
make the symbol smaller is directly mentioned in the documentation (as if
developers "suspect" it is indeed too big) users make use of the proposed
solution instead of coming to the list and ask about it.

Let's consider the following examples of the literature:

Borodin, String quartet No. 1, third movement, Trio.
Rahter:
[image: Borodin1.png]
Belaieff:
[image: Borodin2.png]
Lilypond:
[image: imagen.png]

The first example is very similar to Lilypond, the second one has a style
more similar to our "open" symbol. If this were the only example, I would
say, "no, the flageolet symbol of Lilypond is of average size". However,
the Rahter example seems to be more the exception than the rule when
comparing it with the following examples:

Berg, Wozzeck (Universal Edition):
[image: Wozzeck.png]
Lilypond:
[image: imagen.png]
Lilypond smaller (\tweak font-size -3 \flageolet):
[image: imagen.png]
(the UE notation leans here more to \tweak font-size -2 \flageolet. Some of
the following examples have even slightly smaller glyphs than \tweak
font-size -3 \flageolet, though).

Webern, Six pieces op. 6.
self-published:
[image: Webern selfpublished.png]
UE:
[image: Webern UE.png]
UE (1928):
[image: Webern UE 1928.png]
Lilypond:
[image: imagen.png]
Lilypond smaller:
[image: imagen.png]


Rimsky Korsakov, Sheherezade.
Unknown
http://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/2/20/IMSLP01397-Rimsky_Sheherazade_2.pdf
:
[image: Rimsky1.png]
Muzyka:
[image: Rimsky Muzyka.png]
Eulenburg:
[image: Rimski Eulenburg.png]
Lilypond:
[image: imagen.png]
Lilypond smaller:
[image: imagen.png]

Schoenberg, Violin Concerto.
Schirmer:
[image: Schoenberg violin concerto.png]
Lilypond:
[image: imagen.png]
Lilypond smaller:
[image: imagen.png]

Wouldn't it be desirable to make the tweaked size the default, perhaps even
removing that snippet from the documentation as well?

—Martín.


-- 
www.martinrinconbotero.com