Re: Place text next to rehearsal mark, or with left edge over barline if there is none

[Simon Albrecht]

On 10.07.2017 15:41, Wols Lists wrote:
> On 09/07/17 21:20, Simon Albrecht wrote:
> > On 09.07.2017 21:21, Wols Lists wrote:
> > > Maybe, but placing all related marks one after the other is just as
> > > semantically correct as placing them one on top of the other ...
> > That’s nonsense, and it is for the same reason that it’s not a trivial
> > decision to loosen horizontal alignment in general.
> Why's it nonsense? "semantics" to me means "meaning", and if I see a
> bunch of marks grouped together, they mean (to me at least) that they
> all apply together. The fact that they are sequential rather than
> stacked is irrelevant.

In tempo marks, horizontal position is related to semantics. If you 
place the tempo indication over a different moment, it means something 
different. What’s so hard to get about that? Or are you suggesting 
spreading the notes out by the entire width of the MetronomeMark? (I 
can’t think of tempo indications so short that this wouldn’t be ridiculous.)

> > If you shift a tempo indication a tiny bit to the side, it makes no difference. 
> > But if it’s a
> > slightly larger bit, such as the width of a quarter note, then the tempo
> > change applies to a different moment. And preservation of semantic
> > information (almost) always has to take precedence over elegant layout.
> >
> > > > Finally, these two statements are contradictory:
> > > >
> > > >       A real engraver who wanted to stick to those conventions would
> > > >       presumably shift the note to the right
> > > >
> > > >       wasted white space is high on my list of priorities
> > > How come? Shifting the notes to the right wastes maybe one note-width of
> > > one stave. Stacking marks on top of each other wastes an entire line of
> > > text - bad enough in portrait music but appalling in landscape (where
> > > saving space tends to be extremely important - the music is only A5 to
> > > start with!)
> > It’s obvious that your use case is special in its extremely tight
> > restrictions on paper size and page turns. So I’m afraid you have to
> > lower your expectations as to how well Lily will cope with that special
> > situation in difficult circumstances. I assume you’re aware of
> > possibilities like
> >
> > \paper {
> >    page-count = 2
> >    system-count = 10
> >    systems-per-page = 5
> > }
> >
> > – your use case might take benefit from specifying _all three_ of these.
> And this would gain me what? Loads of wasted white space? On a bandstand
> that's probably not *too* bad, but I was recently playing and a single
> sheet of A4 was a nightmare!

Look, I understood from your previous e-mails that your usecase 
sometimes requires fitting the music on exactly two pages of A5 so they 
may be used for marching. Is that correct?
If you face such a situation and Lily by default spaces the music out to 
three pages, you can specify page-count to force it on two pages. In 
such tight constraints, the spacing algorithms often produce better 
results if you also specify the total number of staves as well as the 
number of staves on each page. If you have trouble applying that to your 
real-world example, maybe try to understand it better by reading it up 
in the Notation Reference, or ask back with an actual example.

> Lilypond claims to be "a system for producing beautiful music". The
> reality seems to be it's a system for producing standard orchestral
> music. Fact is, there are a lot of traditions out there besides the
> traditional western orchestra, and by default lilypond seems to have
> great headaches handling what - to a lot of people - is perfectly normal
> music typesetting.
>
> Take for instance marks! I can't remember why I had the four marks that
> I mentioned earlier, but a large minority of the pieces I play will have
> three - a rehearsal mark, a tempo mark, and a melody name. Oh - and
> given that they typically go up to a rehearsal mark somewhere near S or
> P, and I've known AA and beyond, I don't think cramming them in to two
> pages will work :-)
>
> At the end of the day, people want to use lilypond to produce beautiful
> music - like me! But to argue that the orchestral *tradition* is "the
> final arbiter" of what is right or wrong is simply going to put peoples'
> backs up.

How did I suggest that a certain tradition was the ‘final arbiter’? The 
final arbiter is always legibility, and it so happens that traditional 
engravers of orchestral parts have achieved a very high standard in 
legibility. Producing high-quality parts is difficult enough for an 
orchestral setting where parts are normally larger than A4, there is no 
wind, no rain, and page turns are possible at appropriate locations. I 
totally accept yours as a valid use case, and still you have to admit 
that the constraints you cite are making the task much more difficult.
You can only cram so much music on a page while keeping optimal 
legibility, and if you try to exceed that amount, Lily will choke. There 
are countless possibilities to deal with this situation, but no magical 
ones to solve all problems without drawbacks.

>   Face it. I (and the OP) are trying to use lilypond. It's not
> making our lives easy, because it comes from a different tradition to
> us. And to claim that we're wrong because we're experienced musicians
> who've never seem music like you describe (and let's face it, I very
> rarely see music like you describe) doesn't make you look good.
>
> Different traditions, different expectations. I know lilypond is a
> tricky tool if you don't work with its assumptions. But don't tell us
> we're wrong just because we're different.

Please reread what I wrote: ‘It’s obvious that your use case is special 
in its extremely tight restrictions on paper size and page turns. So I’m 
afraid you have to lower your expectations as to how well Lily will cope 
with that special situation in difficult circumstances.’ Does that 
statement discriminate against the expertise of wind band musicians? I 
don’t think so.

Do you maybe have an example of what you’re trying to reproduce and how 
Lily fails at it? This whole discussion is way too inconcrete.

Best, Simon