On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling <[email protected]> wrote: > Actually, rather than "what users find difficult" (which I agree is > important in and of itself), perhaps it's better to take a different tack: > to try and prepare a systematic specification for the musical notations that > Lilypond should support. > Then, go through each one and identify the extent Lilypond supports that > notation
This is a good idea in itself, but i'm afraid we'll drown in the flood of suggestions if we ask this question now. Currently we want to focus on syntax alone. I mean, some things you mentioned don't need syntax changes, for example this > slight horizontal and/or vertical offsets of dynamics, as is commonly > found in many scores. See e.g. Janek's example of the Mozart Requiem > http://news.lilynet.net/?The-LilyPond-Report-26#lilypond_output_analysis is just a (valid) feature request. There is no new syntax necessary, Lily should just do this automatically. > EXAMPLE: arrowed quarter-tone notation. For details, see: > https://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1278 I think that this is more a matter of internal changes (i.e. how Lily should look at pitches) rather than syntax. Don't get me wrong - i agree with you that we need to check whether Lilypond syntax can be used to express all musical notations as effortlessly as possible. I just mean that "this can be expressed in Lily syntax" doesn't equal "this notation is supported by LilyPond". My idea was to ask about this in fourth question: "what do you find difficult to express in LilyPond syntax? For example, things that need to be done by moving something manually instead of describing the logic behind it." Probably the question could be formulated better. > I don't have a copy of the Elaine Gould book you mentioned earlier, but > that, together with Keith Stone and Gardner Read might be a good starting > point. Yes. As i'm reading "Behind Bars", i'm noticing things that can't be expressed in Lily syntax easily. I will make a report about this. I don't have other books, though. > It's also probably worth taking a reflective sample of compositions > from different periods and seeing how readily they can be engraved; from > contemporary music, for example, I think that Boulez, Stockhausen and > Ferneyhough will probably give a good reflection of what Lilypond's limits > are. I don't think i have time to do the engraving myself. That's why we should ask users, who in their collective wisdom had encountered almost anything :) _______________________________________________ lilypond-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-devel
