<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote... > In the event, this person proved unable (or unwilling) even to try to > install TeX, let alone learn MusixTeX. For my part, I've never ceased > to be glad that, when faced with the need to set guitar music, I > refused to throw money (the price of Finale/Sibelius/Whatever) at the > problem and instead invested the necessary time to come to grips with > MusixTeX. With a little, and at times a lot of, help from my friends > on this list -- and let me take this opportunity to thank them once > again for their kindness. Happy New Year to you all! [snip... ]
Eva, Christian, Daniel, Don, Dirk, Rainer, and the many, many other contributors and caretakers on this list: (!!) I (first) want to thank all of you, and others, for your continuing support that enables us to do great things in music typesetting!! (I reviewed the names and messages received on this list last year and was truly impressed with the number of contributors and the significance of the contributions. Thank you all very much! I wanted to type many more names, and there are many more who deserve mention and Thanks!) Most recently I upgraded my home computer from a Windows95 machine to little bigger machine running Windows 98, and took the opportunity to also migrate from EmTex to MikTex. It was Eva's (and Christian's) excellent guide, (found at http://icking-music-archive.sunsite.dk/software/musixtex/musixwin.pdf) that provided the guidance to make that transition very easy... After years of 'Texing' I still would have easily run amok by the subtle but significant differences in directory structure between the two packages... You saved me HOURs of confusion! All facilities (including the step up to MusiXTex T1.09 and PostScript fonts) went into place very easily Although I have not posted too much this year, I have continued to use MusiXTex, via M-Tx (primarily) as a means to provide (... not any masterworks but,) the utility parts and pieces that one needs (frequently on the same day it is conceived) to support a small church choir. I am often asked, 'What did you use to produce this score?' I have not yet found anyone who really wanted to know. If I am in a 'good' mood, I outline the progression from M-Tx source through to the final PostScript file, (not to mention GhostScript)... and they quickly find an excuse to change the subject. If I am in a bad mood, I simply say, "You don't want to know." It seems, most often, that what people REALLY want is a quick, effortless way to just have music score appear. Very few have even considered how much information is conveyed by this invention we call 'music score.' When they complain that there is too much complication involved with TeX-based tools, I simply select a small segment of a published score (any score) and ask them to review how much is evidently communicated to a performer in order to realize a performance of that segment. When they take a closer look at it, they are usually able to recongize that there are many issues of pitch, duration, expression and context that must be made clear, ... and as they proceed, they begin to sound somewhat more complicated themselves, just describing the score as they see it :-) A typical problem (today?) is that many are satisfied with something much less than an adequate score in the first place. (That is, many 'amateur' musicians do not even want (or use) the various expression marks that a good score attempts to convey.) When people talk about producing music score 'quickly,' they usually mean that they want 'just the notes' and such scores typically do not have much more in the way of expression markings, etc. When they really need to produce a detailed score, complete with all expression marking, they have to spend quite a bit more time at it, even if they are using Finale, (or whatever tool it may be). The detail necessary for the best music score is not 'easily' achieved with any tool. (Note that 'easily' is the important word.) Personally, I find that I can typeset the details much faster with my fingers than I can with a mouse. Although I have not used any WYSIWYG package too much, I have experienced enough of that type of editor to realize that I am NOT able (actually) to complete a score any faster. Yes, perhaps I can drag a sequence of notes into place more rapidly, but when I have to undertake the 'fine tuning,' I soon become annoyed by the amount of 'click here, click there' activity that I need to do. Even with other tools available, I find myself returning to MusiXTex to get better results, frequently in a shorter period of time. In the place where I work, we have managers who want to know 'everything' that is going on! However, they don't want you to waste any of their time actually communicating that... (They want very short status reports, they don't want to have to read anything more than one page long...) Now, when something goes wrong, then they want to know why it is you did not tell them sooner! I think that this is the same problems that we face in the world of music typesetting... It is most certainly just another example of the defects of the human condition :-) And so, we continue.... Happy New Year To All! (and Happy MusixTex'ing) Joel Hunsberger _______________________________________________ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sunsite.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
