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## Re: Constructive Criticism and a Question

 From: stk Subject: Re: Constructive Criticism and a Question Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 16:29:55 -0500 (EST)

> ... in irregular, tuplet-intensive music it may be sensible to create a
> music function for sequences of tuplets. In addition, it's IMHO a more
> lilypondesque solution than tupletSpannerDuration, once we support fractions
> as music function arguments.

If I understand you correctly, this would involve specifying, one way or
another, the duration of each actual tuplet.  Explicit specification of a
duration (other than by an external tupletSpannerDuration declaration) has
been suggested by another user, and IMO it would be a good idea, although
I gather that Han-Wen is not in favour of the idea.

But I have a question about how one would specify a duration.  Specifying
durations in the way we usually think about them allows actual durations
that look like this:
1    ==> 1
2... ==> 15/16
2..  ==> 7/8
2.   ==> 3/4
4... ==> 15/32
4..  ==> 7/16
4.   ==> 3/8
4    ==> 1/4
(etc.)
so that only durations of the form
2^(p-1) / 2^q  (where p < q)
can be specified this way.  But given the extravagancies of contemporary
music, wouldn't it be possible, for example, to have a tuplet where 4
eighth notes would be played over a time interval of 5 eighths --
\times 5/4  {c8 d e f}
Or does such a thing never happen?  If it does, then the tuplet's
duration, equal to 5/8 here, cannot be expressed simply by a dotted-note
notation such as in the preceding list.  A duration of 5/8 would have to
be expressed by something similar to a make-moment fraction.  (Even with
this complication, I would still find it desirable to be able to express
the duration of a tuplet within the [hypothetical] \tuplet construct;
it's the only thing that would make \tuplet functionally different from
\times anyway.)

-- Tom

**********************************************************

On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, Erik Sandberg wrote:

> On Monday 01 January 2007 20:57, Mats Bengtsson wrote:
> > Frédéric Chiasson wrote:
> > > Might it be possible to use
> > >
> > > \tuplet 3:2 {x x x}
> > >
> > > for the usual operation, and if we want to have many tuplets of the
> > > same kind, to use
> > >
> > > \tuplet 3:2 { {x x x} {y y y} {z z z} }
> > >
> > > Might resolve the clarity problems.
> >
> > Since it's easy to define your own function \triplet which
> > does the equivalent of \tuplet 3:2 ..., and since you could
> > give it a short name like \t, your proposal wouldn't save
> > much typing or increase the clarity compared to
> > \t {x x x} \t {y y y} \t {z z z}
> >
> > In these situations with repetitive triplet patterns, I definitely
> > prefer the current kind of solution with
> > \set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 4)
>
> There is one problem with this: If the 'most common' tuplet duration is 1/4,
> but you occasionally have a different tuplet with _longer_ duration, then
> tupletSpannerDuration will break the long tuplet into several shorter
> durations, unless you always remember to \unset tupletSpannerDuration all the
> time.
>
> So, in irregular, tuplet-intensive music it may be sensible to create a music
> function for sequences of tuplets. In addition, it's IMHO a more
> lilypondesque solution than tupletSpannerDuration, once we support fractions
> as music function arguments.
>
> --
> Erik