Re: Substitute for s1*0

[Keith OHara]

James <pkx166h <at> gmail.com> writes:

> The justification has so far been this
> 
> 1. Some programmers like it because it does something inside the code

Not that I've heard.

The only difference in results is that users absolutely must remember 
to specify the duration of the next note or lyric after s1*0, but they 
don't need to be so careful if they use <> instead.

> 2. If we re-document this ugly-and-cryptic syntax with another
> ugly-cryptic symbol things are better and a big light bulb will go on
> in my (casual user) head as I see how suddenly my LilyPond coding is
> now going go be so much easier.

Yes, the discussion has been mostly about which is less ugly-and-cryptic.
But, it is not a huge difference.

Sometimes users want to put things that normally attach to notes or 
rests, like \p for example, in their input in a place where they don't 
have a note, or don't want to write the note.  

A Google search seems to say that I use s1*0 more than anybody else,
<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22s1*0%22+site:mutopiaproject.org>
but you can still several ways having some "empty thing", to attach 
dynamics or markup to, makes LilyPond input easier.

%% It would look wrong to finish the decrescendo after the 36-bar rest 
{ cis,1\f\> s1*0\! R1*36 } 

%% Only the first repeat needs the \ff
\relative c' { s1*0\ff \repeat unfold 4 {f'8.-> f16 d-. c-. r8 }} 

The question is, for these rather infrequent situations, what is a 
reasonably understandable, remember-able, and trouble-free way to ask
LilyPond for that "empty thing"?  I thought it was s1*0, but that's 
because I didn't know about <> and I never ran into a case without an 
explicitly-written duration on the following note.