Re: [GLISS] non-timed or non-musical events "z" "y"

[Keith OHara]

Graham Percival <graham <at> percival-music.ca> writes:

>   Although mathematicians and programmers are quite
> comfortable with contains with 0 items inside them, this is not a
> particularly intuitive concept (just look at the concept of zero
> in the history of mathematics!)

Well, the concept and language for "an empty basket" was used in place
of "a basket with zero apples".  It seems that positional numbering 
systems first required placeholders, in order to write 302 as 3_2, and 
then people eventually started thinking of "empty" as just another number.

That history would seem to favor the empty chord, <> , over a name for the 
abstract concept of zero notes, z.   But if anyone is willing to do the 
programming we can have both.

> This would allow people to write either:
>   { c'1\< <>\! }
>   { c'1\< z\! }
> The non-timed null event z would be inserted after the previous
> note (the c'1) is finished.

I avoided s1*0 (maybe I subconsciously felt it was cheating) but find <> 
extremely useful and use it a lot.  <>\pp^"pizz." \repeat unfold 3 c'4

> A vaguely-related idea [...]
>   \new Voice { << { c'1 } { s4\< s s\> s\! } >> }
>   \new Voice { c'1 y4\< y y\> y\! }

I've been thinking about this and trying it out (just pretending LilyPond 
would accept what I typed) and don't recommend it.

The refined version 
  c'1 -{y2\< y\> <>\!}
is easier to read within a string of music, but not any better than
  << c'1 {s2\< s\> <>\!}>>
so I don't think it worth learning the extra concept, if we did take the 
time to implement it.