Re: Transposing instruments in orchestra score

[David Kastrup]

Shevek <address@hidden> writes:

> If I understand correctly, what Orm wants is to be able to write something
> like this:
>
> clarinet = \relative c' {
>     \transposing bf
>     c4 d e d |
>     \transposing a
>     c d e d
> }
>
> And get the output to show d e fs e ef f g f (using English spelling).
> Currently, in order to enter music in concert pitch and have it display
> transposing, one needs to do the following:
>
> clarinet = {
>     \transposition bf
>     \transpose bf c' {
>         \relative c' {
>             c4 d e d
>         }
>     }
>     \transposition a
>     \transpose a c' {
>         \relative c' {
>              c4 d e d
>         }
>     }
> }
>
> This is cumbersome. It becomes a particular pain if one wants to do multiple
> editions with different transpositions. It would be much, much easier IMO if
> this could be accomplished with a single line command, like in the first
> snippet.

"Much much easier"?  Hardly.  You can, of course, write something like
transposing =
#(define-music-function (parser location p m) (ly:pitch? ly:music?)
  (make-relative (m) m
  #{ \transposition #p
     \transpose #p c' #m #}))

(or leave out the call to make-relative if you don't care about an outer
\relative working "as expected") and use it like

clarinet = \relative c' {
    \transposing bf {
    c4 d e d | }
    \transposing a {
    c d e d }
}

But I don't see that this is really all that much of a winning
proposition.

-- 
David Kastrup