Re: Tangled up in Lilypond syntax

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Aaron,

> I tend to think of something like \relative to be a lower-level construct, 
> intended to be used as close as possible to the pitches in question.  Since I 
> try to keep things organized in variables where content and structure are not 
> intermixed, \relative never appears at a higher-level scope in my work.

That’s great… But essentially all of the documentation has \relative at the 
top-level. So what is a newbie to think, other than "My code should look like

\paper { … }

\header {…}

\relative c' { … }

But then they start to cut and paste code bits, or switch the order of voices, 
or any of a dozen other natural and intuitive operations that don’t imply ‘I’m 
destructive!!’… and then wonder why their music goes off the deep end.

> The only time I have to be careful with \relative is when using \tagged 
> expressions:

Yeah, the way \tags and \relative battled it out was the second major reason I 
left \relative behind for good.
(Ironically, most of the things I used to use \relative for I now handle with 
the edition-engraver!)

Cheers,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden