Re: \textLengthOn - choosing which note to lengthen

[Chris Snyder]

Carl D. Sorensen wrote:
> Your proposed text shows that you don't quite understand how
> \textLengthOn works from a LilyPond point of view.  Your terminology
> is not quite right, so we'll need to change the text a bit before
> we put it in the manual.  I hope you'll not mind that.

Please feel free to modify it in whatever way you see fit.

> \textLengthOn applies to a musical moment, not a note.  A musical
> moment starts at an instant in time of the score, and includes all
> events that occur at that instant.  A musical moment ends when
> the next musical moment begins, or when the first event occurs
> is not simultaneous with the current moment.

Your explanation is helpful - perhaps something like that should be in 
the doc as well? Looking at the docs some more, it seems that the idea 
of musical moments isn't explained anywhere (at least not as well as 
you've just explained it to me).

> So, in the example, the first musical moment contains the c4 in
> the treble cleff, the c1 in the bass clef, and the markup.  The
> second musical moment contains the e in the treble clef.  The
> effect of \textLengthOn is to make the first musical moment
> take as much horizontal space as the markup.
>
> While it appears that \textLengthOn adds space to the shortest
> note, this is incorrect.  It is not the duration of the note in
> the current moment that matters, but the timing of the first
> note to follow the current moment.

This seems pedantic to me - isn't the time that elapses before the next 
musical moment going to be equal to the length of the shortest 
note/skip/rest in the current moment?

> Perhaps this modified version of your example helps to
> explain the concept.
> \score...

That looks fine to me. I think I've understood it better than 
demonstrated in the example I provided; your version is easier to 
understand.

Thanks for taking the time to work with me on this. Your attention to 
detail on even such a minor element is appreciated.

-Chris