Re: ScholarLy and polymetric music? (bar numbering, \RemoveEmptyStaffContext)

[Graham King]

On Mon, 2015-11-09 at 21:53 -0600, David Wright wrote:
> On Mon 09 Nov 2015 at 23:22:14 (+0000), Graham King wrote:
> > On Mon, 2015-11-09 at 14:55 -0600, Christopher R. Maden wrote:
> > 
> >     On 11/09/2015 02:47 PM, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> >     > The very first thing they said to me was, “Add measure numbers.”
> >     >
> >     > That’s sufficient reason for me.  =)
> > 
> >     Good answer.
> > 
> >     In that case, I would pick one part, and force those measure numbers in
> >     as numeric rehearsal marks in the other parts.
> > 
> >     Otherwise, you’d need a translation guide...
> > 
> >     ~Chris
> > 
> > I guess Gould has a point.  I've just realised that, under my system as I
> > described it, a part could have the same bar number twice.  For example, in the
> > attachment below, T has two bars "9".  But apart from an ill-chosen number (in
> > this case), one could regard the "bar numbers" as "numeric rehearsal marks". 
> > Different mechanism, different formatting, same result.  In practice, for the
> > sort of music I'm dealing with, the polymetric sections tend to be quite short
> > so, for the most part, bar numbers are more helpful than rehearsal marks.
>
> This is avoidable if each new bar is numbered with 1+(number of the
> bar—looking across all the parts—that most recently finished). Not
> something I could automate with my zero knowledge of scheme.

Very logical.
Advantages:
+1    Might be amenable to automation.
+2    Robust with respect to re-formatting.
+3    Supports any variation of Staff.BarNumber.break-visibility (I think).

Disadvantages:
-1    On a given line, bar numbers increase in strange and surprising ways, giving potential for confusion.  One cannot just count from the start of the line and announce a bar number.

For that reason alone, I'm inclined to favour:
o    Counting the bars of the top visible staff of the system, whilst
o    Allowing discontinuity at the start of each line to accommodate other parts that might have more bars in the previous line.

But that's just a personal preference.  I wouldn't want to impose it on anyone else!  (and I'm prepared to accept the need to fiddle with bar numbers manually at a late stage in the editing process).