Carl Youngblood wrote:
>There are also places where 3/2 is necessary with the current way of
>doing things. For example, I was just doing a piece in 12/8 time
>where triplets are the norm and I needed to do eighth notes with a
>two feel. In this case I had to use \times 3/2 { c8 c } etc. I
>guess in this case you're saying it would be more intuitive to do
>2/3? I really don't mind the way things are now. It's a syntax that
>has to be learned anyway, and once you learn it, it seems about the
>same effort either way.
The way the syntax is now, is (in musical terms) the opposite of what's printed. Having the syntax match the print is likely to be easier to learn for at least the majority, if not everyone. (The way the syntax is now, it makes mathematical sense; which is nice - but I don't think it serves a practical purpose.)
On the contrary, I think making mathematical sense serves a very practical purpose: it is more consistent with the non-tuplet method of scaling duration and it is (at least for me) easier to remember.
In LilyPond, if I want to print a half note but I only want it to use the duration of a quarter note, I use c2*1/2. If I want to make a quarter note take up the duration of a half note, I use c4*2. If I want 3 eighth notes to take up the space of a quarter note (2/3 of their usual duration), I use \times 2/3 {a8 b c}. OK, so the syntax is different but at least the math is the same.
I suppose you could add the command \times 3:2 {a b c} to do exactly the same as \times 2/3 {a b c} but I thought that this thread was about _reducing_ the number of redundant constructs. I think that having two ways to do tuplets (that are exactly the same except for taking the reciprocal of the fraction) is a recipe for confusion.