Re: absolute pitch entry: accept an offset octave (issue 235010043 by address@hidden)

[David Kastrup]

Valentin Villenave <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 12:25 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
>> This kind of addition would likely get
>> the most useful feedback from people *teaching* LilyPond.  We don't have
>> a lot of those unless you count "batch teachers", namely documentation
>> writers.
>
> Paco would be the obvious person to ask. (Hi Paco!)
>
> Speaking as someone who regularly gives LilyPond initiation seminars
> for adults and childrens, the hardest part is explaining to them why
> \relative mode is not on by default. (So, no matter how, \absolute
> would not come until later on, and \absolute [^c] even later.)
> That being said, I definitely see the value of an explicit \absolute
> mode and I really like what you’re proposing, but in this case we’d
> definitely need to strongly advise people to use \absolute only with
> some c pitch.
>
> You said:
>
>>> I find it awkward when \absolute c'' and \absolute g'' mean exactly
>>> the same thing.  But it's not like I could not live with it.
>
> Well, OTOH: \relative c' { f g a b } and \relative d' { f g a b } _do_
> mean the same thing.

That's like the difference of an item priced at 15.3cent or 15.4cent.
In a total bill, this may make a difference after rounding, or not.
Which does not mean that it never makes a difference.

> The second one will not be transposed one tone higher.
>
> \transpose as a separate command will always be the easiest thing to
> explain, however. (It’s also one of the simplest yet most impressive
> features for newcomers.)

But it's more of a musical feature than a music entry syntax feature.
So using it for music entry has a bit of a "hack" feeling.

Since we've had several users with large amounts of scores under their
belt express the opinion that in the long run absolute mode worked
better for them, I think I like the idea of putting it on more of an
equal footing.  Which was the idea behind providing argument-less
\absolute in

commit 3615ec4b93b0229650c9f6dccc91aa1a74cb3796
Author: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
Date:   Sun Mar 24 14:56:35 2013 +0100

    Issue 3271: Provide \absolute music function to complement \relative
    
    From its documentation string:
    
    Make @var{music} absolute.  This does not actually change the
    music itself but rather hides it from surrounding @code{\\relative}
    commands.

which appeared in version 2.17.15.  But in practice, shifting the octave
will likely be a frequent simplification (even though it does have an
effect on cut&paste).

-- 
David Kastrup