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Re: Fwd: Middle voices and rests


From: David Raleigh Arnold
Subject: Re: Fwd: Middle voices and rests
Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 03:39:09 -0400

On Sun, 2012-05-13 at 17:31 -0400, David B. Stocker wrote:
> Hi group,
> 
> Any guess on how to make LilyPond automatically shift rests the way it
> shifts notes in middle voices to avoid collisions with other notes?

The rule makes it simple, but it is a very obscure
rule to say the least. An inside rest always shifts to 
the left, and it is put before
a stem. It is *never* put after a stem.
That is the opposite of the way bass and tenor
notes shift in a stem collision, assuming four parts.

If it is behind a stem it looks like it is lower
than a descending stem or higher than a rising
stem. The rule makes perfect sense, but I have seen
the rule violated by people who should have known
better. Early 19th century guitar music furnishes
the most and best examples of collision
avoidance, because polyphony is crowded onto
one stave most often. I hope that the majority
followed the rule, which I derived only from
inspection of old guitar scores
which followed it, but I have no statistics,
and I am not up for the herculean task of
compiling such.

It would help to use the new, modern (ca. 1808) 
"s-z" quarter rest instead of Gutenberg's mediaeval
rest which we now use, (G's is a letter "R" with
a flourish on the kicker.) because it is not as tall, 
nor is it as ambiguous as the horrible "classical"
rest which it replaced. 

The fact that none of the notation mavens ever
state that rule is the main basis for my no doubt
annoying insistence that there is *no such thing*
as an authority on music notation.

Not one.

Regards, daveA 





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