Re: why recommend \relative to take a "c"?

[Graham Percival]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 01:00:52AM -0800, Mark Polesky wrote:
> In NR 1.1.1 "Writing pitches" -- Relative octave entry,
> "it is recommended that [startpitch] be an octave of c."
> 
> Why?  Most of the time it won't even be the "startpitch".
> Perhaps "referencepitch" is more accurate, but what's wrong
> with "\relative fis"?

There's two questions here:
1)  "why is `\relative {' being deprecated" --  see the mailist
archives.  I don't know the details, but Han-Wen suggested it, and
he's the person who'd know.  :)

2)  "why a C?"  -- a few ideas:
- for better or worse, that's the "basic" note in western music.
  (I think they should have renamed the letters such that A major
  had no sharps/flats, but oh well)
- for better or worse, c is the octave boundary in lilypond, i.e.
  c vs. c' vs. b vs. b'   in absolute mode
- for better or worse, almost all lilypond scores use c'.  Of
  course, this is a chicken and egg "problem", but I don't think
  it's a particular problem.  Having a single recommended note
  per octave increases the readability between lilypond-score
  writers, and for the above two points, I think C makes more
  sense than A.

Cheers,
- Graham