Re: snippet: standard staff sizes

[Noeck]

Hi all,

I try to answer my own mail after having searched the internet for answers:

> 1. Is there a world wide standard for staff sizes?

No.

> 2. Are "Rastral Staff Sizes" always the same? I once found a different
> list of rastral sizes. The differences are on the level of 2%, but I
> wonder if there is some official reference.

No. The idea is always the same but there are several different values
around. Some agree and differ only because they are rounded differently
to fractions of mm or inches. A comparison will follow from my side.

> 3. Why does LilyPond suggest other staff sizes?
> http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.16/Documentation/notation/setting-the-staff-size.html
> Where do they come from?

They follow a logarithmic/exponential law:
  size(n) = 10 pt * 2^(n/6)
Where pt is the TeX-pt 1/72 inch = 25.4 / 72 mm.
The Feta font names are rounded except for the 25.2 which is rounded up
to 26 (probably to make clear, that the interval does not get smaller
again).

> 4. Are "Rastral Staff Sizes" just a result of the fact that the tools
> for hand-engraved music can not scale arbitrarily?
> Or from the computer-based point of view: Is anything wrong with
> choosing a staff size of 19.1?

I suppose the staff sizes can be chosen freely. It is advisable to chose
from a suggested range.

Cheers,
Joram