Re: Subject: Re: lilypond manual intro

[Trevor Daniels]

Peter Gentry wrote Monday, September 10, 2012 9:28 AM


> Having had my share of gripes re the manuals I am now a "born again" 
> supporter - they are great (not perfect) but great.

Nice to be appreciated - thanks!

> The notation manual is particularly good - the learning manual is fine never 
> seen a problem 
> with writing exclusively in absolute. 

That's fine - absolute is there for those who prefer it.

> Like most normal people I find relative hard to get my head round and always 
> end 
> up with the wrong octave somewhere or other usually ending up beyond the 
> range 
> of the human ear. 

Well, I don't think the rest of us are abnormal.  A few minutes practice for 
most
normal people is all it takes ;)  

> If you import music from other programs absolute is the way to go - why is 
> relative
> favoured so much?

For many tunes notes tend to lie quite close to the next one, so relative
is quicker to type.  Also, as you've noted above, a single mistake is very
easy to spot.  An octave mistake on a single note in polyphonic music in 
absolute notation could easily go unnoticed.

Trevor