Re: Why aren't repeats unfolded automatically in MIDI?

[Trevor Bača]

On 12/5/05, Han-Wen Nienhuys <address@hidden> wrote:
> Erik Sandberg wrote:
> > On Sunday 04 December 2005 18.32, Raphael Manfredi wrote:
> >
> >>What is the technical reason for repeats to not be automatically "played"
> >>(i.e. unfolded) as many times as necessary in the MIDI output?
> >>
> >>The "\unfoldRepeats" is a crude hack, and I fail to see the justification
> >>behind this feature.  Surely, lilypond knows how to iterate over repeats
> >>to be able to process "\unfoldRepeats" so surely it should not have any
> >>problem generating correct MIDI output without this directive.
> >>
> >>Why isn't this behaviour "fixed" to behave normally, i.e have MIDI output
> >>reflect the music as written?
> >
> >
> > Currently, MIDI is mainly intended mainly for prooflistening purposes, and
> > it's not very relevant to listen to repeats when prooflistening.
> >
> > There are also technical reasons: The interpretation of "volta", "unfold" 
> > etc.
> > is not done by the midi/layout backends, but by music iterators. And music
> > iterators don't know whether midi or layout output is being produced.
>
>
> I'm planning to restructure the syntax of \score, \book and \midi in the
> 2.9 cycle so this will no longer be an issue.

It would be interesting to hear more about the syntactic changes,
maybe as we get closer to 2.9.x.

--
Trevor Bača
address@hidden