Re: Lines and Ties and Slurs oh my!

[steve]

   Howdy!

          I spent the last 2 afternoons in the Toronto Reference Library
going
through Henle and Bärenreiter scores from the 1970's and 80's. Mostly
Goldberg, other Bach
 stuff and  some Beethoven. I specifically looked at ties and came to the
following conclusions...


         i) There is huge variability and general lack of consistency not
only in between
            the Henle and Bärenreiter, but even within the same editions.
All of the "errors"
            and "inconsistencies" noted in this thread  that appear in
LilyPond also appear in
            both the Henle and Bärenreiter

        ii) The shape of the ties is noticeably thinner at the ends and
broader in the middle,
            more so than the LilyPond tie.

       iii) ties are generally terminated over/under the middle of the
notehead

         I can only conclude that historically there was much less
attention to the minute
 details of tie consistency etc, and much of the detailing was left to the
discretion of
the engraver. Also since it was done manually, the minute variations that
result actually
 work to "hide" the inconsistencies that otherwise would be more
noticeable and produces
a much more pleasing affect to the eye.. unlike the repetative algorithmic
application
of similar "errors" or "inconsistencies" that we might attribute to LilyPond.

        I don't think that attempting to emulate historical practice of
manual engraving
wrt. ties, is either possible or desireable. What we need is a modern
standard that
makes sense in the age of computer engraving.

         Here is my general sense of LilyPond ties and how they seem to be
drawn and behave....

           i) ties drawn between notes on the outside most staff space
terminate on
              the outside staff line

          ii) ties drawn between notes on ledger lines terminate
over/under the middle of
              the notehead

          iii) ties drawn between notes on spaces above ledger lines
terminate to the
              side of the notehead

          iv) as space becomes more constrained, ties on the inner staff
are diminished
               (shortened and less arch) in order to not cross over a
staff line, at
               the expense of a more appropriate orientation to the notehead.

           v) ties drawn between notes on internal staff spaces, sometimes
have more gap / space
between the notehead making  them inconsistent with other similar

         I think that  i) above,  should change so that the tie terminates
outside the staff.
 I am ok with ii) and iii); this seems to make sense to me now as it
somehow allocates
the space around the note / tie / ledger line  in a good way. Also I think
that
ties in the inner staff should cross over staff lines in order to maintain
a more
consistent orientation to the notehead.

          In conclusion, I think that perhaps 80% of ties in LilyPond are
fine, fixing
i) would make that substantially greater, as would a fix for iv)

          What makes a tie "good" or "bad" is often the result of personal
preference.
I don't think that rewriting the entire Tie code is the solution, and that
it is probably best to make some relatively minor (?) changes to "fix"
what is a consensus
of the problematic ties, perhaps i) iv) and v) ?

                Thoughts?

              -steve