Re: Ratio black and whole noteheads

[Werner LEMBERG]

> But Gould states that the semibreve note head should be wider than
> the black notehead by the proportion of 2 1/2 to 3.

It's a matter of style.  The attached image shows a detail of Franck's
violin sonata as printed by Henle in its Urtext edition.  The whole
note head has a horizontal size of 142px, and the quarter head 95px;
this is exactly 3:2.

> And as you can see from the attached excerpt LilyPond has a ratio of
> ca. 2 to 3, meaning that the semibreve is considerably wider than
> Gould's suggestion.

Yes, and I think that Gould's suggestion should stay as such, and not
being treated as a command.

> Maybe it's a quite massive modification but should be consider
> making the whole note notehead smaller/narrower?

I don't oppose if someone is going to produce `denser' noteheads – you
may remember Janek's ideas to this topic.  However, I strongly oppose
to change the default of what we currently have.


    Werner