Re: Chords with unequal durations

[Kaz Kylheku]

On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:05:39 -0600, Carl Sorensen <address@hidden>
wrote:
> On 9/13/10 7:47 AM, "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Nick Payne" <address@hidden>
>> To: <address@hidden>
>> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 11:30 AM
>> Subject: Re: Chords with unequal durations
>>
>>
>>> One problem with turning off the clashing note column warning is that if
>>> differently headed notes are being merged, it causes the heads of merged
>>> half notes to get filled in. Is this a bug?
>>>
>>
>> I would say so, given that it's not intended and obvious behaviour.  I'll
>> copy it to the bug newsgroup.
> 
> I don't believe it's a bug.  The command says to merge differently headed
> notes.  Merging a half note and a quarter note should result in a filled in
> note; it's the union of both notes.

That is a graphical merge (overstriking one glyph with another); it is
not a
semantic merge, at least in its principle.

> What would you expect to happen when you merge a half note and a quarter
> note?

That's a troublesome case because the semantics isn't clear from the
stems.

Say you have a stem-up quarter note and a stem-down half note whose
heads
coincide to the same value. No matter whether you fill the head or not,
it is not clear. Therefore, I would avoid the notation. Put the voices
into separate staves, or else write two heads adjacent to each other
(similarly to the appearance of second intervals in chords):

   |
   |
 (*)(O)
    | 
    |

In the case of overlap between unfilled note heads and eighths,
sixteenths,
et cetera, the unfilled head can prevail. It's clear from the opposite
stem that the half or whole note is overlapping with another note of
shorter duration:
 
     ____
    |    |
    |    |
  (O)  (*)
  |
  |

It's clear that we have one voice playing a half, and the other
eighths.

But if we fill in the head, the half turns to a quarter.