Re: Microtonal accidentals

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 07/11/13 22:21, Keith OHara wrote:
> The use of two alterations, natural-up and sharp-down, for the same pitch
> where the note-head is on the same staff-position is problematic to read.
> I would hope that composers choose one glyph and use it consistently
> within a piece.

Your notational preferences (and mine) aren't really relevant here.  The fact of 
the matter is that this arrowed notation is one of the two major "standard" 
forms of quarter-tone notation, so it's a good idea for Lilypond to support it 
properly in a way that is simple for the user.

> This is what I looked into.  It seems to me that systems with finer
> intervals are necessarily more frugal and more systematic with the symbols
> they use to denote the alterations.  I found no other cases where two
> symbols are conventionally used to represent the same alteration.

Some composers have used the half/three-quarter sharp and flat accidentals for 
quarter-tones while using arrows for eighth-tones.  The same issue arises, just 
for a different set of pitches.