Re: Choice of pitch input mode

[Caio Giovaneti de Barros]

 On 4/29/16 7:27 AM, "Carl Sorensen" <address@hidden> wrote:
> > About a year ago, Kieren indicated that he has decided to go completely
> > absolute mode, even to the point
> > of redoing his historic code:
> >
> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2015-04/msg00846.html

I was not aware of Kieren's opinion, but after my last work on Lilypond 
I'm arriving at almost the same conclusion. At least for music that 
works outside the tonal (and in a way also modal) paradigm of pitch 
ranges and intervals it is preferable to use absolute mode almost 
always. What a pain it is to write, say, a line by Webern in relative 
mode. And if you make a mistake along the way (and you will make it) you 
have to be prepared to hunt the right note to correct the octave next. 
At least with Frescobaldi you can click on the pdf viewer and it puts 
your cursor directly where you want, which is awesome.

> > I find his arguments interesting.  And if I were engraving things as
> > complex as his, I might also move to absolute.
> >
> > But I am working on simple, short, pieces.  The longest I have done to
> > this point is about 8 pages.
> > For my use case, the convenience of less typing (and to be fair, not
> > having to worry about the octave
> > I'm using) overrides the inconvenience of the occasional octave mistake.
> >
> > So I use relative.

I do believe that at the end this is a choice the engraver has to make 
based on the type of music she or he is working with. Many decisions in 
code organization comes down to convenience, your habits and comfort, 
but just like music engraving in general there are good practices to 
make your work more productive, and if you need to be read and 
understood by others, this is even more critical.