On 2025-12-08 07:59, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
Just to be sure: the beat signatures for
```
\compoundMeter #'((2 8) (3 8))
```
and
```
\time 2/3 5/8
```
are (technically) different, right?
I'm assuming that the latter is a typo for \time 2,3 5/8.
As I understand it, they are not necessarily the same, though there are
possibly overlapping use cases.
\compoundMeter #'((2 8) (3 8)) prints two fractions separated by a plus,
which Gould emphatically describes as indicating strict alternation
between two meters (p. 174 and 179). She says it is "permissible to
notate each metre as a separate bar" but "more common to treat the
pattern of alternating time signatures as single bars and to separate
each metre with a dotted barline, if necessary" (p. 179). "Each section
of the bar must conform to its appropriate time signature" (p. 180).
\time 2,3 5/8 prints a multi-term numerator over a single denominator,
which Gould recommends avoiding (p. 178), and so doesn't say much more
about. It seems that she takes this notation to indicate subdivision of
a single measure, which is how it is implemented in LilyPond.
--
Dan
