Re: Why don't we get rid of \chordmode?

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi David,
>
>> Actually, I find that a rather encouraging statement.  I'd have expected
>> "don't change current tremolo syntax".  address@hidden has some mnemonic 
>> value
>> ("play a quarter at eighths", oops sounds like a time).  But I don't
>> like its look.  Would you consider c4/8 an adequate syntax?
>
> c4/8 can be read as "a c quarter note, divided into eighths" -- quite
> nice mnemonically.  That being said, I worry about scanning c4/8
> versus c4*1/8 and not easily seeing the difference.

Argh!

That's why it's important for me to bounce my ideas off the list.  And
presumably c4/8*2 would then need to be the valid syntax for a quarter
trembling in eights and taking twice as long as planned: meaning tremoli
need to be specified before duration scaling.  This can be defined to be
parsed uniquely, but reeks of being too clever.

> [For the record, I use the cX*N/M construct a lot... Whether I should
> *have* to or not is perhaps fodder for a different thread. However, it
> would take a lot of evidence -- or one really brilliant idea -- to
> make me think that changing *that* construct is advisable.]

That's putting it politely.  I agree with that assessment.  I am not
sure it is the death knell for c4/8, but makes it decidedly less
attractive.

> So I think we can come up with something that is both typographically
> simple and mnemonically compelling… How about c4t8 ("a c quarter note,
> tremolo-d in eighths").

I don't consider that particularly pretty.  On the other hand, it is not
particularly clever, either, and that may actually be an advantage.

I remember that I considered c:7 as chord notation peculiar when I first
saw it: so solving the ambiguity from the other side would also meet my
approval.  In particular since that would not imply downward
incompatibility.

-- 
David Kastrup