Re: [gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general] Re: Transposing instruments

[Keith OHara]

David Kastrup <dak <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Shouldn't we have a command
> 
> \transposing f { ... }
> 
> (better naming suggestions welcome) that does transposition and Midi
> correction in lockstep?  

I assume the command would produce the music that we currently get from
  {\transposition f \transpose f c' {...}}

In that case it seems like a good idea, because it serves the
second-most-common of the three use-cases:

1) Make the sounding pitches (for midi and cues) different from written.
Such as when transcribing existing music, or when writing for transposing
instruments where you need to consider the instrument capabilities.  Often
the transposition changes in the middle of the music, because transposing
instruments are the ones that performers most often need to exchange, so
it is good that this is done with a property-set in \transposition

2) Transpose written pitches, but leave sounding pitches alone.
Such as when arranging music (written at concert pitch) among different
instruments:
 {\transposition bes \transpose bes c' {...} }

3) Shift pitches, both sounding and written.
When producing an alternate score at higher pitch, maybe for a particular
singer's range, if the music involves cues or midi.  Except for the
complications of issue 754, this is done with simply \transpose c d {...}


Maybe documenting the existing \transpose and \transposition better would
be enough.  In any case, the first thing to do is resolve issue 754.
Documenting transposing instruments in LilyPond is tricky with that bug,
because we either run into the bug, or teach how to depend on the bug.