Re: GDP: rearrange manual

[Trevor Bača]

On 9/9/07, Graham Percival <address@hidden> wrote:
> Mats Bengtsson wrote:
> > Just one general comment for the moment: I'd rather propose longer than
> > shorter subsections. I think that there already is too much fragmentation
> > at some places for the moment, which means that you never get the chance
> > to see the full picture as a reader.
> Interesting suggestion; I was obviously thinking opposite to this -- for
> example, consider splitting Dynamics into (absolute) and (crescendi).
>
> My motivation is that some people clearly hadn't read the whole doc
> subsection, and that having shorter subsections would make people more
> likely to read the whole thing.
>
> Any other comments about this?  I'm not convinced either way, but this
> is something we should definitely decide before getting into more
> details about a rearrangement.

I can't see a strong argument towards either smaller subsections or
larger subsections. Maybe this means that size of the subsections is
probably just fine in most cases and that arguments for combining (or
splitting) subsections can be handled on a case-by-cases basis as the
rest of the chunking takes place?

As a first pass, I took a look at chapter 8 "Advanced notation",
because I've never been very comfortable with the distinction between
"basic", "advanced" and "contemporary" notation in the current
structure. So the first suggestions here give a way to remove 8
"Advanced notation" completely (keeping the content of course!) by
redistributing the content to possibly smarter places; I've left 6
"Basic notation" alone for the moment (though I think a similar
pattern of promoting many of the sections of chapter 6 to the status
of free-standing chapters will probably make very good sense as we
move to a true notation manual):

Specifically:

- promote section 8.1 "Text" to the status of a free-standing chapter

- combine sections 8.2 "Preparing parts" and 8.3 "Orchestral music"
and promote the combined content to the status of a free-standing
chapter, perhaps called "Scores and parts" or "Working in full score"

- remove section 8.4 "Contemporary music" altogether because the
contents of "Contemporary music" fit perfectly in the following other
parts of the manual:

~ subsections 8.4.1 "Polymetric notation" and 8.4.2 "Time
administration" can both go live with the other subsections on rhythm
under section 6.2 "Rhythms"

~ subsection 8.4.3 "Proportional notation" can be removed completely
in favor of subsection 11.6.5 "Proportional notation"

~ subsections 8.4.4 "Clusters" and 8.4.5 "Special noteheads" can
become the very last subsections of section 6.1 "Pitches"

~ subsection 8.4.6 "Feathered beams" belongs with other rhythmic
devices under section 6.2 "Rhythms"

~ subsection 8.4.7 "Improvisation" doesn't belong in the manual, imo;
seems like a good candidate for LSR

~ subsection 8.4.8 "Selecting notation font size"; how did this ever
wind up here? I don't understand the intent of this section; it talks
only about notehead font size (not about font sizes in general), so if
we keep it (which seems unnecessary, actually) then it should go to
section 6.1 "Pitches"

(I make the preceding recommendation on contemporary notation based on
the fact that we've come a *TREMENDOUSLY* far way with contemporary
notation in the last major releases and I think that the most
professional way to reflect this fact is to un-ghetto-ize the
contemporary stuff and just include it -- elegantly and cleanly -- in
the other major sections of the manual.)

Lastly, to complete the removal / redistribution of chapter 8 ...

- promote section 8.5 "Educational use" to the status of a
free-standing chapter (just like "Text" and "Scores and parts",
above), perhaps near the very end of the table of contents


More suggestions like this or no?


-- 
Trevor Bača
address@hidden