Re: Understanding how \tag works in \relative pitched music

[David Kastrup]

David Wright <address@hidden> writes:

> (\fixed could have been implemented differently, ie without
> collapsing the meaning of c' through b' as its first argument.
> This might make it more useful for parts having a limited range
> centered close to c.)

How so?  The reason we collapsed the meaning is that we had several
different opinions of what the natural behavior of \fixed f' should be
"obviously", so we punted by choosing behavior that did not provide
(possibly shortlived) usefulness for anything rather than c'''.

> Anyway, would the people who like \absolute please be a little less
> evangelical about it.

Uh, where is the point?  This is a discussion group.

> Some of us are happy using \relative, and understand how it interacts
> (or, more usually, doesn't) with other constructions in LP. It's odd
> that one of your main reasons for abandoning \relative was merely a
> misunderstanding of what it does, but I think that that could partly
> be blamed on its documentation. \relative's treatment of accidentals
> merits bold typeface in the LM; perhaps its existence as an immediate
> _input_ method could be similarly emphasised where appropriate.

\relative is a tool for expressing input.  As such, it should offer
significant clarity with regard to one aspect of input.  It doesn't do
that impressively when communicating with other programs, so its main
incentive is communication with humans.  When humans are confused about
what it does, it fails on one of the core tenets of its justification.

So its advantages are not without drawbacks, and people weighing in on
how those affect them respectively are making for a clearer picture.

-- 
David Kastrup