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Re: Newbie Question -- verse and chorus


From: Tim Rowe
Subject: Re: Newbie Question -- verse and chorus
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 17:56:51 +0100

2009/5/11 Graham Percival <address@hidden>:


> The Learning Manual does ***NOT*** require any prior knowledge.
> If you find **any** lilypond material in the LM which does not
> follow from previous material, this is a bug.
> (we do not explain musical terminology, although we try to add
> links to the music glossary for non-English or amateur musicians)
>
> Go back to LM 2 Tutorial.  Oh, make sure you're looking at the
> 2.12 or 2.13 documentation.  Start reading.  As soon as you find
> a part that assumes prior knowledge, TELL US and we will fix it.
>
>
> Now, the NR assumes that you've already read -- and UNDERSTOOD --
> the LM.  If we didn't do that, the NR could easily be five times
> as long as it is already.

I have read through the LM a few times now. I've not memorised it,
though. Ditto the notation reference. And the problem for a newbie --
well, this newbie, anyway -- is that I don't know whether I understand
it until I try to use it. Then, when I hit a wall -- presumably
because there's something I don't understand, because I'm not doing
anything unusual -- I'm not sure where to go. It's one thing
understanding the documentaion, it's entirely another applying it.

So when I want to do something pretty common like set a chorus and
multiple verses, and can't think of anything I've read that directly
relates (I'm not proficient enough to connect the task to stuff that
doesn't directly relate yet) then my thinking is "There must be an
idiom for a common task like this". When I don't find the idiom in the
snippets, surely it makes sense to ask, rather than plough on and come
up with some possibly arcane and ugly solution to a problem that's
already been solved?

Then I get an answer that the problem can be solved using Voice
contexts. That's helpful, a good steer, and would probably be enough
for an intermediate user. But in my case it reveals that I don't know
contexts well enough to apply that information directly. Clearly what
I thought I understood hadn't sunk in. So I need to go back to the
manuals and check what I'd -- read -- er -- somewhere ... -- er --
where was it? And /that's/ where I'm running into problems. "RTFLM
section 3.3.1" would have been a good answer, where a bare "RTFM" was
no sort of an answer at all. Although 3.3.1 pretty much begins with
"we have already met the Voice context", with no hyperlink to where
that was -- and that's the particular context I need to work with.

You see, that's my problem. When I discover a gap in my knowledge or
understanding, I find that I have to read /all/ of the documentation
again, not just the bits that would fill the gap. Or, of course,
ask...

-- 
Tim Rowe




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