Re: vocalName vs. instrumentName

[Simon Albrecht]

Am 20.04.2017 um 17:59 schrieb David Kastrup:
> Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Hello everybody,
> >
> > I’m wondering: what are the historic and functional differences
> > between vocalName and instrumentName?
> vocalName/shortVocalName are fallbacks when neither instrumentName nor
> shortInstrumentName are set.  That's all seemingly.
>
> > Are there any? Does anybody have a clever policy when to use
> > vocalName? Does anybody use it at all?
> Looks rather pointless to me, to be honest.

They were announced as a change in v2.2: 
<http://lilypond.org/website/misc/announce-v2.2> with the description
‘Voice names, for vocal lines, have been added. They are similar to 
instrument names. They can be set by defining |vocalName| and |vocNam|.’
– which doesn’t tell us how they’re _similar_, but different from 
instrument names.
In vocal scores there is a convention of displaying the name of a singer 
upon entry as a markup above the staff, sometimes in a special font 
(sans serif, narrow). Now, if Instrument_name_engraver actually did such 
a thing that would be a very good feature, and a sensible use for vocalName.

Best, Simon