Re: sharping naturals

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 13:05:15 +0200
Thomas Morley <address@hidden> wrote:

> 2015-08-10 3:05 GMT+02:00 David Raleigh Arnold
> <address@hidden>:
> > On Thu, 23 Jul 2015 11:33:50 -0500
> > Brother Gabriel-Marie <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> >> When you use key signatures like A major or B Major you end
> >> up with a lot of naturals in the score for which you may
> >> have to manually add sharps.
> >>
> >> Is there a switch that will automatically sharp all the
> >> naturals?
> >> I was looking at this:
> >> http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/displaying-pitches#automatic-accidentals
> >>
> >> This was the closest I could see:
> >> \accidentalStyle modern
> >>
> 
> Hi Rale,
> 
> I hesitated to post in this thread for some reasons.
> 
> One reason was, I had no clue what it was about. I simply did
> not understand the question.
> 
> In an earlier post David Kastrup wrote about different thinking
> about note-names due to language and culture. It really helped
> me to understand that Brother Gabriel-Marie expected
> { key a \major c }
> to print what I'd call a cis.
> I never ever would have had that expectation, but after David
> K's post I can understand the thinking, at least.
> 
> Let me quote this part of his post again:
> 
> 2015-07-24 14:20 GMT+02:00 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
> [...]
> > LilyPond's notename philosophy happens to be from a culture
> > remote from the English speaking world.  In Dutch or German,
> > you never, ever, would call a "cis" anything other than
> > "cis".  It's not a "c sharp", namely some qualified "c".
> > That's a totally different note and name.  There is no such
> > thing as a "c natural" when talking about notes.  It's either
> > "c" or not.  You don't need to specify the key signature when
> > discussing a chord: all note names are absolute.  Always.
> >
> > LilyPond is internationalized in that it offers English
> > notenames, but it does not offer the accompanying notename
> > philosophy.  And the fuzziness coming with such a philosophy
> > is not helpful in the context of a computer description of
> > music, so it's not all that likely that this will ever change.
> [...]
> 
> I'd suggest you read it again und try to understand.

I answer every one of his points below:
> 
> > The developers have resisted this from the beginning, because
> > they don't realize how easy it would be.
> 
> I really doubt.
> 
> > There may be also a
> > certain contempt for the user or composer who is not expected
> > to know what key he's in.
> 
> This is bullshit, sorry.
> 
> > There are editing tools which will add the
> > chromatic signs for you. I posted one on this list some time
> > ago, a bash script using sed. Nicholas Sceaux has written
> > one. It may be that the Garibaldi editor will do it, I don't
> > know.
> >
> > The appropriate notes are sharped or flatted unless there is
> > an "n" or any other chromatic sign. That's it. Simple, fault
> > tolerant, and not requiring any changes at all to the many
> > choices already present in lilypond.
> >
> > \follow {} has been suggested as the command. I would suggest
> > that \follow indicate which notes with the sharp or flat, as
> >
> > \follow fs cs gs {music}
> >
> > to avoid language problems as much as possible.
> >
> > It is possible that a piece may have so many of certain
> > accidentals that \follow would be more trouble unless you lied
> > about the key. You would probably not use it for a blues in G.
> >
> > The need is to insert the chromatic signs
> > before anything else, such as transposition, is done.
> > Kindest regards, Rale
> 
> 
> If I understand correctly your proposal is that
> 
> \language "english"
> 
> m = { ff' f' fs' }
> 
> \m
> \follow fs \m
> \follow ff \m
> 
> will be printed different.

Only f' would be printed differently, as fs or ff. fss, fff, fn,
etc. would be ignored.

But you still need \key. Without \key, \follow makes no sense.

How you say it is irrelevant. You say C-sharp but you write
Sharp-C. "c" is quicker to type than "cis" or "cs", especially
"cis". The point is that on the staff, in A major, a c# looks like
a "c" and writing what it looks like has nothing to do with
language, it just saves typing,
just as writing key signatures saves a lot of writing chromatic
signs. I don't write all the sharps or flats when I write by
hand. Why should I have to do it when typing? With 3-7 chromatic
signs in the key it saves a *lot* of typing.

An individual who didn't like it would not have to use it. I
believe that a majority of music professionals would like it. I
have been doing it for many years, using a crude editing tool.

> 
> In my thinking that's absolute crude.

Perhaps, but it is the most flexible way, and the easiest to
implement in any language with a 14 item hash. It's simple
substitution.

Chords are no problem. No sane person would apply \follow to
chord names. The substitutions should be done before chord names
become an issue, and < this > won't interfere with hunting down
the target notes or cause additional confusion, as long as you
know what key you're in.

> Though, obviously there are other opinions about that.
> 
> Patches are always welcome.

Thank you. One can hope. Kindest regards, Rale

-- 
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