Re: \relative proposal: putting absolute pitches anywhere within \relative block using @-sign

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:

>>> However there is no fundamental need for the first pitch being an
>>> absolute pitch in the first place.
>> 
>> It can be relative to f if we want to.  That adds the least amount
>> of information to the first pitch.
>
> It seems to me that we should completely avoid the word `absolute' if
> we speak about \relative.  While the statements
>
>   the first pitch in \relative is absolute
>
> and
>
>   the first pitch in \relative is relative to the pitch `f'
>
> are completely identical, people seem to have logical concerns to the
> former one...

I have a hard time calling the objections "logical".  At any rate, it
would make no sense at all to avoid "absolute pitch" and instead talk
about "relative to f" since the choice of f is not arbitrary.  Its whole
point _is_ that then the first pitch is equivalent to absolute pitch.

If people start ticking off intervals from f to figure out how to
express an absolute pitch dis'' in \relative f notation, there is no
gain for them.  Worse, they will need to look up what the mysterious
reference pitch of \relative { dis'' } was quite a lot in order to
calculate what dis'' will end up as.

If we don't present the fundamental reason for the choice of reference
pitch, if we keep it an insider joke, then the whole exercise is not
worth doing.  The whole _point_ of allowing to leave off the f from
\relative f is to turn this notation into more than an insider joke.

-- 
David Kastrup