\relative is not the best way of entering complicated music

[Keith OHara]

It took me years to realize that \relative was making LilyPond more difficult
for me. I very often forget what was the last pitch I typed, especially when
working on a few music expressions in parallel, and even when I do remember the
burden of deciding if the interval is a fourth or fifth is distracting.

I use temporary parallel constructions a lot, so the most recent pitch in the
input is not always the most recent pitch in time.  Re-arrangements of the
input require re-checking of the intervals at the boundaries.


The \transpose function is useful for picking the natural octave of the voice.
I always know where I am in the range of the target voice or instrument.  When
using \transpose, for any music with intervals larger than fourths, absolute
pitch entry requires less typing than \relative (with or without octave checks):

  \relative c''' { r8 a g a f a e a | d,='' a' a, a' b, a' cis, a' | 
    d,='' a' cis, a' d, a' e a | f=''1 }

  \transpose c c'' { r8 a g a f a e a | d a a, a b, a cis a |
    d a cis a d a e a | f1 }

*Short* segments of music can be easier to type inside a \relative construction,
and these short \relative constructions be put inside the \transpose c c'' {...}
We can re-arrange the \relative constructs with no extra effort, and if the
segments are short enough that we never need to rearrange things /inside/ of
them, we are spared the need to figure intervals.

As soon as you start entering music more complicated that a single melody line,
I recommend using \relative only on short segments of music---the contiguous
single melody lines within the more complicated piece.