On 2019-01-05 11:30 am, Wols Lists wrote:
On 05/01/19 17:34, Aaron Hill wrote:
But for matters of the not-so-unusual, have no disillusion your
engraving (or writing) will be readily clear if you choose to stray
too
far from the path.
?????
But standards are of no use if applying them results in output that is
not "fit for purpose" as English law puts it ... :-)
One could say it is misapplying the standards if it results in poor
output. But also keep in mind, styles and conventions are primarily
about consistency, not correctness. That is to say your content must be
correct in and of itself before you apply any guidelines of style.
Following or not following style is not inherently correct nor
incorrect.
Consider the silly example: you have notated an A flat with a whole note
when you intend the player to play a D natural for only a brief moment,
but you are concerned about how much space to place on either side of
the whole note. This absurd situation is well beyond the scope of style
as the original notation is quite likely objectively wrong. (I leave
some room for subjectivism here, simply because I'm sure some composer
somewhere either has or will eventually write a piece where notes don't
mean what we typically think they mean and all bets are off.)
Providing we are solid on the intent of the music, then we can look at
improving the overall fitness. Bringing things close to our collective
notion of standard notation (but no closer than necessary) helps us
ensure consistency. That is what provides a readily clear
interpretation to your audience. But ultimately these rules themselves
need to be applied with care and intention, not as a one-size-fits-all
solution.
LilyPond's defaults try to be the one-size-hopefully-fits-most solution,
and it sounds like many of them are born from the guidance of folks like
Gould. But rarely will any rule be universally applicable, so it is
necessary to be able to adjust default behavior in certain cases.
Otherwise, we are stuck with LilyPond applying standards without any
thought to the situation. We can try to provide LilyPond with more data
to make a better-informed decision; but it's still going to be a
machine. It will likely always take a human to make the final choices.
And I guess that is my long-winded conclusion: be the master, not the
machine. Do not blindly follow rules nor blindly reject them. Use your
own critical thinking while leveraging the conventional wisdom around
you. Feel confident in the choices you make, but always be prepared to
reevaluate them as new information becomes available.
P.S. I would like to add that, as a performer who has great disdain for
annoying page turns, I will join you in the battle for promoting sane
typesetting. Slightly squished and/or "creative" notation is far better
than wrestling with (and wasting) paper.
-- Aaron Hill
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