Re: Polymetric tuplets look bad

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

address@hidden writes:
> > > Why so much space for the first quarter note?  The 9:4 tuplets are the
> > > shortest duration notes, so I would expect them to drive most of the
> > > spacing, but they look very irregular.
> >
> > This is a dilemma; in single staff music, the (stretchable) space
> > should be from right-edge of a symbol to the left-edge of the
> > following. Unfortunately, this approach does not work well for
> > polyphonic pieces, where the left-edges of the notes should follow a
> > regular pattern. Currently, LilyPond uses a compromise between
> > different staves; probably, we should switch off all delicate optical
> > spacing for polyphonic parts, and use the left-edge of symbols exclusively.
> 
> This could however have a negative impact on simple polyphonic music, e.g. 
> 18th c. duos where the two parts often have the same rhythm.
> 
> Would a possible solution be to calculate both a polyphonic-style and 
> monophonic-style spacing, calculate a measure of how much rhythmical 
> difference there is between parts, and then do some kind of interpolation 
> between the spacings, weighted by that measure?

Perhaps ; however, it sounds like a complex solution. We should first
try the simple solution (use left-edges for polyphony), and then try
to solve the problems we find with 

> Hopefully this could simulate quite well how a human engraver works. And, 
> perhaps it could help improving cases like bugs/clef-rest.ly?

I doubt it.  The mm-rest is a spanner; the position of the rest is not
determined by the spacing-engine.


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 Han-Wen Nienhuys   |   address@hidden   |   http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen