Re: Tangled up in Lilypond syntax

[David Wright]

On Wed 27 Mar 2019 at 19:19:10 (-0400), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> 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!)

My understanding of the EE (which I've never used) is close to zero,
but I thought it was conceptually a late part of the LP process,
whereas \relative is just about the earliest. So I'm not sure
I understand how you use the former to substitute for the latter.

Cheers,
David.