Re: PATCH: Improved tablature support

[Marc Hohl]

Carl Sorensen schrieb:
> Wikipedia (in a poorly-cited article) uses the term "ghost note" for all
> instruments (including the string-muted and palm-muted notes).  This entry
> seems to indicate that "ghost note" is a term widely used with drums.
>
> Following up on links to "ghost note" in the guitar world causes me to
> believe that ghost notes in guitar are different than ghost notes in wind
> instruments.  So I don't think that "ghost note" is a good universal term
> either.
>
> After this little search, I'm inclined to lean toward the Virginia Tech
> answer -- use the "false note" term, since it's not used anywhere else, and
> point it to "dead notes" for guitar and "ghost notes" for woodwinds.
>   
The situation seems to be somewhat complicated.
I didn't know the term "false notes" (yes, I do, but not in this case :-)
but "ghost notes" on guitar are parenthesized notes which are
played so that the can hardly be heard. The same goes for drums
(I don't play very well, but my teacher once told me that ghost
notes on the snare are so silent that the microphones on stage
don't even transfer a signal, but you can still "feel" the ghost notes
in the groove). I have no experience in woodwind notation,
so I cannot speak for them.

It is possible to use dead notes and ghost notes as aliases,
but guitarists expect something else in both cases, and drummers
will be confused by ghost notes, so perhaps it would be the best
to stay with the term "dead notes" and add a line or two in the
Documentation about woodwinds clarifying that dead notes can be
used as a synonym for ghost notes.

Another (much more complicated solution) would be do define
some kind of "environments" for special instruments.
By including "guitar.ly", you'll have \deadNotes and stuff,
by including "woodwinds.ly", you have a command called \ghostNotes
which provides the same functionality - and so on.

But I don't know if this really makes sense...probably it will be more
confusing rather than helping the users.

Marc