Re: Understanding how \tag works in \relative pitched music

[David Wright]

On Sat 05 Aug 2017 at 09:07:48 (-0400), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > Huh, can't say I've heard of \fixed.
> 
> It may have been a relatively [ha!] recent addition…?
> See 
> <http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/learning/absolute-note-names> 

AFAICT \fixed is not in 2.18.2 but is in 2.19 versions and their NMs.
However, its only appearance in Changes (New Features) seems to be its
use without introduction on the first page.

> > And yeah, absolute mode is a lot easier than relative. If I want to 
> > duplicate a measure, I prefer just duplicating it instead of having to 
> > adjust the octave.
> 
> Agreed. And including variables in multiple scores is immediate, etc.

Well, it doesn't surprise me that you, as a composer, are happier
using \absolute. The situation is quite different for transcribers
of melodic music. The only places where \absolute is useful to me
is with fragmentary parts, generally in the odd keyboard transriptions
or reductions forced on me. (I didn't quite understand your use
of "immediate" above.)

\fixed makes me realise why, as a singer, both \fixed and \absolute
don't fit with my way of thinking about pitch: they are both
"octave-centric". IOW they treat the pitch change from b to c' (in
all octaves) as special, whereas to me they're just two notes that
happen to be next to each other, like e and f. Whether this is also
influenced by possession of perfect pitch (which I don't have), I
don't know.

(\fixed could have been implemented differently, ie without
collapsing the meaning of c' through b' as its first argument.
This might make it more useful for parts having a limited range
centered close to c.)

Anyway, would the people who like \absolute please be a little less
evangelical about it. Some of us are happy using \relative, and
understand how it interacts (or, more usually, doesn't) with other
constructions in LP. It's odd that one of your main reasons for
abandoning \relative was merely a misunderstanding of what it
does, but I think that that could partly be blamed on its
documentation. \relative's treatment of accidentals merits bold
typeface in the LM; perhaps its existence as an immediate _input_
method could be similarly emphasised where appropriate.

Cheers,
David.