Re: why Kieren is a \relative evangelist [was “Re: Nested transposition"]

[Paul Scott]

On 3/17/21 1:45 PM, antlists wrote:
> On 17/03/2021 08:23, Michael Gerdau wrote:
> > I don't have any of the show stopper Kieren is so evangelistic about 
> > and very clearly find \relative easier to enter via a normal keyboard 
> > by a long shot. Entering all those "'" (requires SHIFT on a german 
> > keyboard) and "," is not at all fluent.
>
> Well, I'm a "hunt-n-peck" one-fingered pianist, so I guess I'd find 
> using a midi keyboard MUCH harder than a computer one (as a guitarist, 
> I found that was great for improving my typing skills :-)
Having read Kieren's method of using midi to enter the pitches and later 
adding the durations I may let the idea of a midi keyboard go.
> imho the near universality of keyboard competence defines Western 
> Music as "can be played on a piano" and has severely damaged our 
> understanding of what music actually is. Musicians like me who can't 
> play piano are very rare ...
>
> And why would a copyist be able to play keyboard?
Or not.  There's no reason for them to be mutually exclusive.
> > I also find reading \relative much easier but that my be depending on 
> > what you're used to.
> likewise
>
> > I seldom use transpose and I know of no case where I have nested 
> > transpose. With unnested transpose I have not yet had a problem. And 
> > frescobaldi does very easily transform from \relative to \absolute, 
> > should I ever need it.
>
> Well, as a trombonist who plays in both brass and concert bands (and 
> used to play in an orchestra), I use transpose all the time, and never 
> had any trouble.
> > Therefor my conclusion is:
> > Kieren surely has good reason to prefer \absolute, but deriving that 
> > \relative is inferior and should be avoided is overdoing it IMO.
>
> Agreed. Okay, my instrument wouldn't use much by way of octave modifiers,
Bass clef instruments is where I just started switching to \absolute.
> but I'd hate to be writing a piccolo trumpet part ...

\fixed should make extremely high or low parts much easier.

I think remembering \fixed and the challenges of editing mistakes in 
\relative is convincing me to switch to absolute. Probably the biggest 
problem I encounter with \relative is when I enter some music and then 
extract a section of it into a variable for use somewhere else and 
having the original shift octaves somewhere in the middle.  Then I have 
to search for the shift and correct it.

Stay safe and well,

Paul