===========Timothy S. Nelson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I think the letters thorn, eth, and ash, which fell into
disuse in
English beween 800 and 1300 should be reintroduced.
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I thought 1066. I thank heofon that someone besides myself and
Bill Gates has that opinion. I was in a horrible position. Now
you are. But my point is that music notation is more rational
than English, or any alphabetical system I can think of, and
ought to be kept that way, and that which is not that way is
broken and should be fixed.
==================
What should one do instead? Use two rests? (NB: Honest
question).
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___ ___
| / | \
|/ | _|_
| | |
|anks. |__/ose are the best kind.
Yes. As was done for centuries before some lazy b----r thought
it would break his arm. The logic AFAIK: The dotted note early in
its life became an abbreviation for a note tied to another note
of half its value. Tying rests makes even less sense than tying
slurs, so there was no benefit of not having to draw (or read) a
tie from using a dot. The trade is one possibly ambiguous symbol
(the dot) for one clear one (the rest). There is also the problem
of placing the dot in a tangle, in which there is far less
running room than in placing another rest later in the measure.
To their credit, copperplate engravers did not use dotted rests,
even though making dots was the easiest thing they ever did. As
anyone who has ever produced music with ink notices, there are
plenty of damn dots in music already, and putting in more for
such a questionable benefit made no sense to those generations,
nor does it make a grain of sense to me. I am not offended by
them, but when I see them in printed music, which I do often, my
estimation of the basic knowledge and intelligence of the
producer of it is lowered considerably. This is not fair, I know,
because sometimes it is the fault of the software that is used
(not here though! :-)) and not just an ignorant teacher and/or
textbook author at one's favorite University.
===========
Also, have you considered the fact that the american system for
naming the
notes, while systematic, is incomplete, and can't be completed
except by using
the note lengths 0 and -1 (or -2) for the breve and longa? And
what about the
British naming system? Even worse :).
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Many don't like the term whole note, so half notes happily
coexist with semibreves. I don't care about terminology, per se.
In the case of slurs, though, there is a real problem with
terminology that is doing some real damage to this software.
BTW:
Someone wanted a breve by putting lines before and after a
semibreve. Bad idea. He saw a cheap crummy typeface. Let's have a
proper maxima (-9+?) too, not just longa (-3) and breve
(-0.33333333) :-). I don't deal with that stuff, but many do.
-----------
What I hate is when the computer is using logic that you
reject. Then
it has to be beaten into submission. Fortunately, that doesn't
seem to happen
nearly as much with Unix :).
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My worst fear is that, when all the fog of confusion is cleared
up and the dust settles and the slurs and ties are *fixed*,
something very illogical will end up being called a *logical
slur*. Has this kind of thing ever happened? =:-@
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Mi casa es su casa :-)
--
Peace, understanding, health and happiness to all beings!
((((((( g__n__u f_o_r_c_e )))))))
lily_lily__lily MN[-------------------->mm@ _lilypond__
dave No Va USA David Raleigh Arnold [EMAIL PROTECTED]
