Re: why chords with notes of different duration is not supported?

[Graham Percival]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 09:15:41AM +0100, Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 12. Januar 2011, um 09:02:19 schrieb Graham Percival:
> > On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 12:04:50AM -0500, Marc Mouries wrote:
> > > i'd like to know about the rationale behind not supporting chords with
> > > notes of different duration.
> > 
> > Because there's no such thing as a chord with notes of different
> > duration.
> 
> But there is a notation for multiple stops that looks like a chord with notes 
> of different duration.

Before moving to computer science, I was a cello teacher.  And I'm
now playing first violin in an orchestra doing, amongst other
things, Tchaik's Romeo and Juliet.  I also played viola for half
of my music degree.  I'm very familiar with (bowed) string music.

> > That's not a chord.  That's multiple voices, and they're simple to
> > write in lilypond.  Please read the learning manual.
> 
> To quote Gardner Read: "Chord notation for string instruments often appears 
> incorrect to the non-string player."

There's a couple of separate issues here:
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
  arbitrary violinist?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to an
  expert in music notation?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
  lilypond manual?
- what is the precise definition of a "chord" according to the
  lilypond internal code (be it scheme or C++)?

> As a violin can only play one note,

two notes, you mean.


Look, if you want to get a violinist "chord", you do this:
\new Staff \relative c'' {
  <<
    { \voiceOne g,4 }
    { \voiceOne d'4 }
    { \voiceOne b'4 }
    { \voiceOne g'2 }
  >>
}

not hard.  Wrap it up in a music function to make it easier.

If somebody wants to work on adding such a music function to
lilypond itself, send an email to the frog list, or a patch to the
-devel list.  If somebody wants to talk about the lilypond input
syntax -- such as making the <> construct allow different
durations -- then wait until GLISS.

- Graham