Re: Beam positions and time signature spacing

[Peter Bjuhr]

On 11/10/2013 12:36 PM, David Kastrup wrote:

One should never _discard_ what an authority has to say and should try tracking its reasoning, but if the results from following instructions don't actually lead to convincing results (in particular when comparing them with the printed results), one needs to do better than follow instructions. And more often than not, heeding all constraints mentioned in instructions at the same time is not even possible sensibly, and then one needs to relax them using sensible priorities.

I like to try to broaden the discussion a little by doing what David writes above, try tracking Gould's reasoning for the recommendation:

Gould is obviously not saying just that the recommended distance looks better than any other distance; it's not a esthetical proportion for the most beautiful looking score. What she is aiming at throughout the book is clarity and readability of the notation especially in a performance situation. To bring things to a head I think it would be very fair to assume that she would rather have an ugly score that makes life easy for the performer than a beautiful score that makes performance almost impossible. Luckily what makes a beautifully engraved score for the most part goes hand in hand with makes it easy to read and perform.

In this case with the distance to the first note this general attitude can be assumed, she also explicitly states that she takes traditional engraving practice into account. I personally would like to see her recommendation as a sweat spot where you could be fairly sure to stay out of trouble. The problems when you end up to close clef, key sign or time sign are of course easily imagined in terms of readability. The problems with a too great distance is less obvious, but huge separation between elements can also hinder easy reading.

I think it's great that you, Gilberto, involve yourself in these question. But I lack the knowledge of what has been discussed previously. Does your analysis show any issues that should call for adjustments of LilyPond's behaviour in this regard? I see no point in an overall adjustment to the exact measure recommended by Gould, and that has of course no one requested. What could perhaps merit as a subject for further analycing and possible adjustments is as already mentioned your third example (with clef only and with more accidentals). And I would also add your fifth example to this list (with key signature and with one accidental), because here is a potential problem mentioned by Gould. Here is her example in LilyPond code:

{\key g \major

\override Score.TimeSignature.stencil = ##f

cis'' }

Here the accidental could be mistakenly taken for a part of the key signature if it's too close. (The example appears fine to me when I compile it, but I would like to mention it anyway.)

Best
Peter