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