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Re: engraving question


From: Neil Thornock
Subject: Re: engraving question
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:33:33 -0600

Hi everyone,

I can't help but to comment on this.

For one thing, how would such an analysis as Han-Wen proposes proceed -- statistically?

From all of my observation of European hand engraving, clefs only take up extra horizontal spacing when it is necessary for the sake of fitting the clef.  Otherwise, the clef occupies as little space as possible - in either polyphonic or monophonic music.  I could find reams and reams of such examples.  I would like to see examples of clefs taking up extra space where such extra space is not "needed" - where it is simply used aesthetically.  The only examples I can find use extra space extremely judiciously - and not that noticeably at that.

My understanding of the idea is this (not from technical engraving practice, simply from much observation): horizontal space is primarily concerned with rhythmic representation.  Time signatures obviously take space because they occur at the beginnings of measures, as do key signatures (usually).  A clef takes up unnecessary horizontal space within a measure when the note-to-note distance occupies more space than is needed for the notated rhythm *and* the clef would comfortably fit in less space.  Clefs taking up this kind of space skew the rhythmic representation in horizontal space.  As a performer, I find this unnecessary clef space distracting - the rhythmic "skew" throws me off.  And as an observer of hand-engraved scores, I can't seem to find substantial examples of it.

It seems to me clefs should be horizontally "invisible" unless they can't fit otherwise.

Hope that helps.  I'll keep my eyes peeled in a sort of informal analysis.

I could follow this up with a discussion of the merits of Joe's space-to-barline property, which I think has promise...

And many, many thanks for the efforts to improve this excellent program.

Neil

On 8/19/07, Han-Wen Nienhuys < address@hidden> wrote:
Joe Neeman escreveu:
> On Saturday 18 August 2007 11:48, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
>> 2007/8/16, Joe Neeman <address@hidden>:
>>> I'm trying to tweak the spacing code, and I've come across a case where
>>> I'm not sure what to do. In the attached example, I have a note followed
>>> by a clef change followed by a bar line. Given that the clef fits in the
>>> space that would be there anyway, should it take up extra space? Any
>>> strong opinions (they will be regarded more highly if they come with
>>> references, of course)?
>
> To follow this up, the default now is to do the tight spacing as suggested by
> Mark Knoop. To enable looser spacing, I've added a new property to
> NoteSpacing:
> \override NoteSpacing #'space-to-barline = ##f
> will put more space before a clef. I've made the tight spacing the default
> because it works with both polyphonic and monophonic music.

This is good as a temporary solution, but there are very, very few people
that know where to find this kind of option, let alone how to modify them
effectively. I would welcome some more analysis what the Right Thing for
this is.

--

Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen



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