Re: Best name for function to create cross-style noteheads

[Trevor Daniels]

Hans Aberg wrote Friday, July 24, 2009 10:06 AM


> On 24 Jul 2009, at 07:58, Marc Hohl wrote:
>
> > I think it would be the easiest way to define a neutral name 
> > first.
> > Personally, I like the idea of \xHead, \xHeadOn and \xHeadOff.
>
> I think so, too. In computer lingo terms, you want define two 
> things:  the implementation, and the user interface. LilyPond does 
> not provide  a means to hide away the implementation, but that is 
> the same as in C.
>
> The implementation names would be the \xHead, \xHeadOn and 
> \xHeadOff,  though strictly speaking, I think these are notes, not 
> just heads -  the Unicode symbol U+1D143 MUSICAL SYMBOL X NOTEHEAD 
> is just a head  without stem and flags.
>
> So perhaps \xNote, \xNoteOn and \xNoteOff might be better.

I would be happy with either \xNote or \xHead.

The situation with crossed note heads is rather
similar to placing parentheses round note heads.
Both are used to convey a variety of musical
intentions.  For parentheses we have the \parenthesize
command and for crossed note heads, by analogy,
we should have \xHead (or \xNote).

The structure of the Notation Reference is designed
to accommodate documenting this.  The specialist
sections in NR 2 would contain an indexed description
of all the uses of crossed note heads.  For example,
under "Common notation for wind instruments" would
appear "key-slap" and "sub-tone", with a pointer to the
description of crossed note heads, which is already
described in NR 1.1.4 Note heads (#'style=#'cross).
Other uses of crossed note heads should be documented
similarly in the appropriate specialist sections.

Trevor