Re: spacer rest *

[David Kastrup]

David Wright <address@hidden> writes:

> On Fri 27 Apr 2018 at 14:58:13 (+0200), David Kastrup wrote:
>> David Wright <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>> > I would assume it's because this notation (which arrived too late for
>> > me to make use of when it would have been handy¹) is designed for
>> > percussion and lets you write, say:
>> >
>> > snare8 8 8 8 r2 R1 8 8 8 8 r2
>> >
>> > ¹ a spoken work.
>> 
>> For example.  I agree that pitched rests at least seem like they might
>> make a reasonable candidate for repetition in that manner even though it
>> could beg the question of why unpitched rests aren't.
>> 
>> There are no fundamental technical reasons to do one or the other.  This
>> is just the current implementation choice.  If changes are to be made,
>> it would likely be smart to do that before 2.20 gets released.
>
> Well, I don't know how the decision was arrived at,

Not consciously made.  I cooked up that feature and that was what I
ended implementing.  Never thought about pitched rests at all.  I think
there may have been some minor bit of discussion, but basically I wrote
the Scheme code expand-repeat-notes! without much feedback and review
and it looked at chords (actually rhythmic events in chords, not just
note events: that looks fishy though probably takes some tomfoolery to
trigger) and note events.

> but my own view is that it's the correct one. The duration-only
>  notation is aimed at people writing rhythms, and they write them for
>  instruments that play notes (and pseudonotes like snare above). They
>  don't compose rythmic riffs for rests and spacers.

Cage will have a word with you.  But yes, that sounds reasonable to me
as a defense of the current behavior.

-- 
David Kastrup