Re: Is there any way to use dynamics as prefixes?

[David Kastrup]

address@hidden writes:

> On 02/28/17 20:14, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Well, but slurs can start at the same note where another slur ends, and
>> `c'4( d')( e')' is a lot clearer to me than `(c'4 (d') d')'
>
> I can honestly say I've never seen that, and I can't really imagine
> how that'd even be played. I agree that that looks like some sort of
> weird nesting, which isn't too great.
>
>> But if you prefer the latter, just start your music file with
>>
>> "("=<>(
>
> What is this, Perl?

It reassigns a new meaning to "(", and the new meaning is <> (the empty
chord) with an opening slur attached (the old meaning is taken before
"(" gets redefined).

>> and you are all set.  At one point of time, LilyPond worked like that,
>> and it wasn't really working all that well.
>
> Might be better to just get used to it, then. Would probably help if
> Vim's lilypond highlighting didn't suck.
>
>> Incidentally, the empty chord <> is helpful for your example as well:
>>
>> <>\mp
>> \notes
>> \notes
>> <>\ff
>> \notes
>> ...
>
> That seems quite useful, yes. AsI'm guessing it basically creates an
> empty zero-length chord and attaches stuff to that.

Yes.

> how come the dynamics look like they're attached to the next note
> instead of before it?

Because the chord is zero-length.  And because the musical timing of
articulations is at the start of the notes they are attached to rather
than at their end since all synchronization happens when an event
_starts_.  So <>\ff starts the \ff at the preceding note's end and the
following note's start, and this works out as placing it in the same
position as the following note.

-- 
David Kastrup