Re: non-relative relative mode?

[donald_j_axel]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:39:02 +0100 (CET)
Reuben Thomas <address@hidden> wrote:

> >   I attempted to use \relative c'', but found that mode to be much too
> > unpredictable for my tastes.
> 
> It's entirely predictable: if a note a up to a fourth from the previous
> one, you don't need a ' or a ,; otherwise, you need one (or more) comma or
> tick. What's the problem?

You don't get what this user means by unpredictable.

You cannot cut and paste, you cannot read it, you cannot trust you
eye in multivoice piano context - and I think that there even are
some <chord> bugs somewhere along the relative line. \relative
just adds another dimension to the readability issue for piano
music. Where is which voice? Where is the dynamic for that
notecolumn/bar? Is this the upper voice or are your reading the
lower voice? When you have more than 10 bars I guess this becomes
more and more of an issue.

So personal tastes vary. Use what you like.

It takes a fraction of a second to enter a lot of  '''' 

Therefore use transpose for what it is meant to do, not as a
relative replacement.

In certain contexts you even add less of these '''' than you do in
\relative mode. (jumping voices, arpeggios, I had a better example
the other day).

What do you prefer:

\absolute_pitch {

    f                 a                 e' 

    f'                a'                e''
} /* can be read immediately anywhere, cut and pasted into other \absolute */


or

\relative c' {
    f,,               a                 e'

    f                 a                 e'

} /* are there two octaves between the f's? */

Consider that you have to find the \relative X specification
somewhere 400 lines above if you are reading 100 bar - piece of
music.


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