Re: Is there a short way of forcing a particular octave?

[H. S. Teoh]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2016 at 09:30:08PM -0600, David Wright wrote:
> On Wed 21 Dec 2016 at 20:43:20 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
[...]
> > Look: I’m glad you like \relative mode. But after a decade of using
> > \relative (and running into many frustrations) followed by nearly a
> > decade of using \absolute (with no such frustrations), you’ve got a
> > serious uphill battle convincing me that \relative is superior.  =)
> 
> I'm not trying to convince you of any such thing. I wrote "I can't see
> the point in *avoiding any methodology* that makes things easier and
> more reliable." I'm not trying to convince you to use it. I'm just
> worried about people's attempts to *dissuade others from* using it, as
> if there's something wrong or immature about it.
> 
> The examples you gave above were both about editing what's already
> written into LP source, and I know that you are composing directly
> into LP. Doing that would be much more difficult with \relative than
> \absolute.
[...]

FWIW, I also compose directly into LP, and I totally dig \relative mode.

I think it depends on the kind of music you're using it for. If you're
writing modern stuff that rarely sticks to traditional melody lines,
then \relative mode is probably not for you, because its determination
of octave appears to be designed around traditional melody lines.  But
if you're writing highly melodic stuff like I do, \relative mode is a
real keystroke saver (I'd get a wrist aneurysm if I had to type all
those 's and ,s hundreds of times every day).

I find \relative mode quite helpful in orchestral works because it lends
itself very well to copy-n-paste octave doublings. Trying to do that in
absolute mode and needing to edit tens of 's and ,s after you copy a
line that needs to be transposed by an octave is quite painful.

Now I realize that \relative has its disadvantages, and that you can use
\transpose and what-not to make editing ,s and 's less painful, but so
far, I haven't found a strong reason to switch to absolute mode. Whereas
when I start a new sketch without \relative, I quickly tire of all the
's and ,s and revert to \relative once again.

Of course, this is just based on the way I work and the kind of music I
work with.  Obviously your mileage may (and probably will) vary. But I
just wanted to chime in with another data point that \relative isn't
absolutely bad -- if you'll excuse the pun :-P -- and that there *are*
people who find it useful.


--T