Re: [talk] easy tuplets

[Keith OHara]

Graham Percival <graham <at> percival-music.ca> writes:

> Currently, durations are limited to powers of 2 (plus dots).
> Making a triplet involves the wordy \times x/y { ... } or a *x/y
> scaling factor.  We could avoid this (in common cases) by allowing
> arbitrary integer durations.
> 
>   c4 e \times 2/3 { c4 e g }
> into:
>   c4 e c6 e g

Rhythms often repeat, and I think everyone omits the tuplet number after
the second repeat or so.   Then
  {\times2/3 {g8 c' es'} \times2/3 {g8 c' es'} g8*2/3 c' es' g c' es'}
would be
  {g12 c' es' g c' es' g8*2/3 c' es' g c' es'}
placing brackets every three 12-th notes by following automatic beaming.

It might be more clear to have the *x/y get the tuplet brackets,
  {g8*2/3 c' es' g c' es' g12 c' es' g c' es'}
placing brackets every three 2/3rd 8-th notes because y=3.

We would still use \times x/y {} a lot -- for the case of \times 4/6 {}
that Francisco brought up, and also probably for the case Carl brought up 
\times 2/3 {c8. c16}  (unless {c12. c24} is clear enough, and the c12. is
kept distinct from c8 even though it lasts the same time).


For context, we should remember another earlier suggestion :
\tuplet 6/4 {..}  means \times 4/6 {..} for 6 notes in the usual time of 4.
\tuplet 6 {..} means \tuplet 6/4 {..} as 4 is the closest power of 2 below 6.
\tuplet {..} means \tuplet 6/4 {..} if the
\t {..} can be defined by users as shorthand for \tuplet {..} if they like.

The \tuplet system would help more in the general case. 
For examples, Debussy likes tuplets 
<http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-table.cgi?searchingfor=debussy>