Re: Dealing with almost-repetitive stuff

[Evan Driscoll]

On 3/1/2013 11:54 PM, Evan Driscoll wrote:
> How do you deal with music where there is a lot of repetition of a group
> of measures, but where the dynamics or other instructions (e.g.
> pizz/arco) differs between repetitions?

Sorry, I think I didn't explain myself very well in the last email, and
I also thought of a perhaps pretty good approach after sending my last
mail. (The old "solve your problem as you tell others about it" shtick.)

Consider typesetting the first 6 measures of Mars:
http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/d/d1/IMSLP27539-PMLP33488-Holst_Planets_VC.pdf
[via IMSLP]

One way to typeset that would be something like the following:

    motif = \relative c {
        \times 2/3 { g8 g g } g4 g g8 g g4 |
    }
   
    \relative c {
         \time 5/4 \clef bass
         \times 2/3 { g8\pp^"col legno" g g } g4 g g8 g g4 |
         \motif |
         \motif |
         \motif |
         \times 2/3 { g8\< g g } g4 g g8 g g4 |
         \times 2/3 { g8\> g g } g4 g g8 g g4\! |
    }

In other words, I can use the \motif variable a lot of the time, but
there are also a lot of measures where there is other stuff going on and
so I "can't". I was curious to know what people did in such a situation.


However, I just thought of a possible solution, which is to use another
voice with spacer rests:

    motif = \relative c {
        \times 2/3 { g8 g g } g4 g g8 g g4 |
    }
   
    \relative c {
         \time 5/4 \clef bass
         << \motif s4\pp^"col legno" >> |
         \motif |
         \motif |
         \motif |
         << { \motif \motif } { s4\< s1 | s4\> s2. s4\! } >>
    }
   
In some sense this just lets me to continue to use the \motif command so
i don't have to keep doing "\times 2/3 blah blah blah" and just put the
interesting things on the right *beat*. Is there any reason that this
would be bad? (e.g. does the \pp still apply to the \motif voice when
doing MIDI output?)


Also, on a related question but not really Lilypond-specific: anyone
know of any recommendations for when/how percent repeats should be used?
Would you typeset that part with percent repeats for instance? Is it
kosher to put things like a full-measure crescendo or an "arco"
instruction that applies on the first beat of a measure on a measure
with a percent repeat?

Evan