Well, I am nearing a big performance of a composition of mine on the
25th. It has been notated in lilypond, of course. I am about to hand
the score off to my conductor, but would like to raise a couple of
issues too see if they might be resolved before I give the parts to
the musicians. I have listed these in the order of importance, as it
appears to my eye, on my score.
1. Slurs seem to collide with just about anything, but particular
problems include collisions of slurs and dynamic markings, both
hairpins and absolute markings (like \mf). Slurs also collide with
scripts such as fermatas and accidentals, but this occurance isn't
as common or as ugly as the dynamic collisions. This is probably a
tough issue to fix due to the flexible shapes that slurs can have,
so I can understand why this issue hasn't already been fixed. On
the other hand, it is pretty glaring and hard to excuse to
non-lilyponders, like my composition professor. 8-)
2. Dynamics are placed strangely. In particular, hairpins and
absolute markings are not aligned vertically, and they often
collide horizontally. This, a swell such as
<c'1 { s4 \mp \< \! s4 \f \> \! s4 \mp } >
comes out looking like a train wreck. Less extreme examples are
not quite as problematic, but it isn't "right" yet, either.
3. Triplet markings often collide with the stems in the figure. This
is more common when the note stems go down as opposed to up.
4. The first system of the Hari-Kiri score needs to show all of the
instruments, even if they don't play right away. The first system
is a special case.
5. There are about a thousand other things that look fantastic! Keep
up the great work!
Well, thanks for reading this far. I suspect that none of these
issues are new, so I am just trying to make some new noise about them
because they are important to me. If Jan or Han-Wen wants to give me
some pointers and hints about how to fix any of these problems myself
(especially if it is easy) I will take a shot.
John
--
John Galbraith email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Arizona, home phone: (520) 327-6074
Los Alamos National Laboratory work phone: (520) 626-6277
home page: www.ece.arizona.edu:/~john
"As had been true historically, Gates' concern was not making great
products, but keeping the world locked into using his products."
--- Wendy Goldman Rohm, The Microsoft File
