Re: Suggestion: Use non powers of 2 for tuplets

[David Kastrup]

Christian Masser <christian.masser@gmail.com> writes:

> Just adding my two cents to this debate. In my humble opinion it's pretty
> clear what "12" in this context means as Lilypond's syntax is always about
> the divisor. c4 is always a quarter of a whole note. Therefore c12 would
> always be a twelth of a whole note, thus a third of a quarter note.

You mean, an eighth triole?  Or an eighth sextuplet?

> And c7 would always be a seventh of a whole note.

How would this print?  LilyPond does not only produce MIDI, you know.

> With this in mind, why should input like "c3" yield an error if it's
> otherwise very consistend with the syntax and definitely unambiguous?

It is unambiguous?  Is it a half note triplet?  Or a sextuplet in 2/1
time?  To be printed with a bracket or not?

> (And the dots also don't pose problems in a mathematical sense, as
> it's clearly defined, that one dot prolonges the note by a half of
> it's value, two dots by a half and a quarter and so on.)

You are confusing the sonics with the visuals.  LilyPond would not be
free to replace c4. c4. with \tuplet 2/3 { c4 c4 } and vice versa even
though the MIDI would sound the same.

> Things like these should be easy in Lilypond, considering it's sheer
> flexibility and hackability. And if I were a composer writing in 5/6,
> i would probably be happy if I could just write "c2 d6 e6 |".

Problem is that LilyPond is not the one playing the music, but it
produces a print that somebody has to play.  And when there is no
notation corresponding to the input, LilyPond will have a hard time
suggesting how to play things.

-- 
David Kastrup