Re: Why aren't repeats unfolded automatically in MIDI?

[Erik Sandberg]

On Sunday 04 December 2005 18.32, Raphael Manfredi wrote:
> What is the technical reason for repeats to not be automatically "played"
> (i.e. unfolded) as many times as necessary in the MIDI output?
>
> The "\unfoldRepeats" is a crude hack, and I fail to see the justification
> behind this feature.  Surely, lilypond knows how to iterate over repeats
> to be able to process "\unfoldRepeats" so surely it should not have any
> problem generating correct MIDI output without this directive.
>
> Why isn't this behaviour "fixed" to behave normally, i.e have MIDI output
> reflect the music as written?

Currently, MIDI is mainly intended mainly for prooflistening purposes, and 
it's not very relevant to listen to repeats when prooflistening.

There are also technical reasons: The interpretation of "volta", "unfold" etc. 
is not done by the midi/layout backends, but by music iterators. And music 
iterators don't know whether midi or layout output is being produced.

> P.S: Why aren't pralls, trills, arpeggios not automatically realized
> during MIDI output?  When playing baroque music, the lack of realization
> of those ornaments really changes the way it sounds.  And typesetting
> the realization in the score is cumbersome and messes the visual quality
> of the score.

Look for "MIDI rewrite" here:
http://lilypond-design.com/sponsor/open-features.html

-- 
Erik