Re: Lilypond lobbying?

[David Kastrup]

Joseph Wakeling <address@hidden> writes:

> On 08/25/2011 06:17 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Honestly?  Heaps of praise coupled with a diffuse "improvements might
>> make things worse" may be an _elevating_ way of looking at Lilypond, but
>> I consider this even less helpful than pinpointing a weakness.
>
> I don't like "X sucks" comments -- better to understand _why_ things are
> one way or another, especially when (like Lilypond) there are good
> reasons.  For what it's worth, where "improvements might make things
> worse" are concerned I was thinking about Lilypond getting a GUI
> frontend -- easy to tweak -- but being constrained in future development
> by what could be done in the GUI rather than what could be done with
> text input.
>
> But if you want examples of weaknesses:
>
>   * Placement of ornaments that do not fall directly over a notehead.
>     It's absolutely typical in classical music to have e.g. a turn
>     start on the second beat of a 2nd note, but this is very difficult
>     to implement well in Lilypond, as it involves both tweaking the
>     horizontal offset of the ornament itself _and_ increasing the
>     horizontal space assigned to the 2nd note.
>
>   * Placement of dynamic marks that do not fall directly under a
>     notehead.

c1*1/4 s1*3/4\p

>   * _Easy_ attachment of extra descriptive text to dynamic marks
>     (pp subito, f ma non troppo, molto p), and intelligent placement of
>     those dynamic marks.  Something like \f{rtext="ma non troppo"}, or
>     \p{ltext="molto"}.

The "Expressive marks" snippets contain "Horizontally aligning custom
dynamics".  Should be a good start.

>   * Placement of hairpins that do not begin or end directly on a
>     notehead.  There needs to be an _easy_ way to indicate
>     "This crescendo starts on this note but 1 quarter-note in"

c1*1/4 s1*3/4\<

>     (e.g. \<{delay=4}, \<{delay=2*8}) and possibly also "This crescendo
>     continues for 7 eighth notes" instead of ending on the next \! or
>     dynamic mark (e.g. \<{length=7*8} [no delayed start] or
>     \<{delay=4,length=7*8} [1/4-note delayed start).

c1*1/4 s1*5/8\< s1*1/8\!

>   * More generally, a simple "functional" notation that allows you to
>     override common properties of musical objects, instead of the
>     \once \override notation.  Some of what I've suggested above is
>     heading in that direction, but I'm sure there's a better notation.

I have work stashed away while working on the property stuff that would
make #{ ... #} inside of music functions useful for a lot more than just
sequential music, greatly simplifying turning a lot of stuff into music
functions.


-- 
David Kastrup