Re: Automatic beaming in melismas

[Janek Warchoł]

Moving from -user.

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:50 PM, Kieren MacMillan
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Here's my opinion:
>
> 1. The default auto-beaming should produce scores which represent
> the current best practice in the engraving industry, which is to ignore lyrics
> (inside and outside melismas) and beam as if it were instrumental music.
>
> 2. \autoBeamOff should mean exactly that — no automatic beaming
> (inside or outside a melisma) — or the command could be confusing.
>
> 3. In order to achieve "old" (e.g., 19th Century Novello) conventions,
> there should be an *additional* or *different* switch that needs to be
> "turned on" by the user, e.g. \vocalBeaming.

Ok, if \vocalBeamOn would mean "turn autobeaming off outside of
melismas, but automatically use beaming inside melismas", i'm all for
it.


On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 7:07 PM, Francisco Vila <address@hidden> wrote:
> And using slurs for melismas (which are interpreted as melismas by
> lilypond) [...]
> This way there is no need of the \melisma command in common modern practice.
>
> Also, manual beams do melismas automatically [...]

The current behavior is bad, because it mixes two different things:
melismas themselves and how they are represented.  If i use either slurs or
manual beams for melismas, i'm hardcoding some redundant (or at least
partially redundant) information into my source file.  For example, if
i specify melismas using either slurs or manual beaming, i cannot
easily make an automatic keyboard reduction using previously entered
vocal variables, or change melisma representation to other style.

What i suggest would be quite the opposite: every melisma should be
indicated using a melisma command, and *then* user can decide how he
wants melismas to look like: should every melisma be automatically
marked with a slur, or a dotted slur, or should beaming be used for
it, or something different (or nothing at all).

Of course, a shorter (preferably one-character) command name should be
chosen.  \melisma and \melismaEnd is too much typing.

> ([however manual beams are] not a solution for long melismas)

Exactly.  Since they don't make sense for long melismas, they're not a
solution at all.

How do you like this revised proposal?

cheers,
Janek