Re: doc work

[Trevor Daniels]

Carl D. Sorensen wrote Friday, August 15, 2008 10:23 PM
> On 8/15/08 3:16 PM, "Neil Puttock" <address@hidden> wrote:

> > 2008/8/15 Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
> >
> > > In fact, what about instead of
> > >  \midi{}
> > > we do
> > >  \midi { \tempo 4 = 60 }
> > >
> > > ?  That doesn't add any vertical length to the templates, but it
> > > gives midi output (which can be very important for inexperienced
> > > composers), and even gives a hint about how to change the tempo.
>
> > Unfortunately, you can't put \tempo inside a \midi block any more.

I don't know why this was changed, but it seemed a
retrograde step to me.

> > It doesn't look so user-friendly once you have to start using context
> > properties and moments:
> >
> > \midi {
> >   \context {
> >     \Score
> >     tempoWholesPerMinute = #(ly:make-moment 60 4)
> >   }
> > }

Abolutely!

> Maybe this is a good reason to include it in a midi block of a template,
> along with a comment that the 60 is beats per minute, and the 4 is a 
> quarter
> note.  From that comment, people could probably change the tempo however
> they liked it, and they'd never need to learn the syntax themselves.[1]

Well, maybe.  I would prefer that early users placed a
\tempo 4 = 60 in their score block, which is easier to
understand, works in MIDI, and permits dotted notes to
be used (which can't be used in the tempoWholes.. method
(you have to scale everything up to integers).

All in all I think we leave tempos out of the MIDI block
in the templates.  If we need to mention MIDI in the
Learning Manual we should add a simple section, but I
think 3.5.1 in the Notation Reference is easy enough.

> Carl