Re: No fiddling claim

[Jonathan Wilkes]

> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:21:01 +0200
> From: Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: No fiddling claim
> To: Jonathan Wilkes <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> Op zondag 27-09-2009 om 14:22 uur [tijdzone -0700], schreef
> Jonathan
> Wilkes:
> 
> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> >      Not too long ago, I gave my
> opinion that "No fiddling" should be 
> > changed to "less fiddling" for the new website.
> >      After trying to do a quick
> exercise with a Schumann score, which I 
> > posted here concerning a slur tweak after a line
> break, I don't think the 
> > "less fiddling" claim is valid, either.
> 
> You seem to miss the point of the "no fiddling"
> remark.  
> 
> As an aside: this is exactly why I do not like the newly
> fumbled
> "less fiddling", it turns people's heads into the direction
> of
> fiddling.  People have come to think fiddling is
> normal and required.
> More often than not it isn't.  We do not want less
> fiddling, we want
> bug reports and no fiddling.  Okay... 

Hi Jan,
     I don't understand the meaning of the statement "More often than not 
it isn't." There are tweaks in all of the examples from the canon that 
begin the sections in NR, plus there are plenty of engraving mistakes in those 
examples as well that would require more tweaks (i.e., fiddling) to 
fix. For example, in Op. 53 in NR 1.1:
* "cresc." should be centered
* the end points of the slur in m. 36 should start about a half-space 
higher (or possibly at the top of the stem on the left end point)
* sf and hairpin should be higher
* hairpin shouldn't touch the right barline
* l.h. slurs in m. 34 and 36 should have more arc to be further from the 
sharp sign
* p in m. 38 should be centered
and whole-note, respectively

If the "no fiddling" thing is supposed to be the 
underlining philosophy of Lilypond, I definitely understand what you say. 
If it's supposed to draw current users of GUI programs to Lilypond with 
the idea that, more often than not, fiddling is not required, I don't 
think that's true except for the most rudimentary examples.

> 
> The idea of LilyPond is that the output should be beautiful
> without
> fiddling.  While this may not have been achieved yet
> for some pieces of
> music, it may be true next year.
> We found that if you
> wanted 
> beautifully engraved music, you would need to move almost
> every freaking
> note, beam, barline, slur, accidental and lyric when using
> an expensive,
> popular GUI program.

Actually, that's why I'd like to see how the process works for a Finale 
guru vs. Lilypond guru: not as a contest to see who "wins", but as a way 
to get a sense of how each copyist/engraver spends most of their time. 
For example, I'm pretty sure the Finale user wouldn't need to move 
every beam manually (though I'm not sure about note positions in the newer 
versions).

> 
> It may be that some tweaks, esp. where you need visible
> feedback
> take more time to do in LilyPond than they do in a GUI
> program.
> I don't think we particularly care about this.  The
> upside here
> is that any tweaks you do need, can be quite easily
> improved
> incrementally, saved for a next time, discussed on a
> mailing
> list -- while mouse movements cannot.
> 
> If you want to help, please post a minimal snippet with the
> slur
> or grace note that you do not like to the bug-lilypond
> list.

I'm happy to help and post some examples of the behavior I want to 
tweak.  The main tweak headache I'm having concerns cross staff beams, and 
slurs broken over barlines (esp. long ones).

Thanks a lot for the response.

-Jonathan

> 
> Jan.