Re: lilypond-user Digest, Vol 133, Issue 102

[Jim Long]

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 07:24:51AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > I was
> > brainstorming an orchestration teaching tool, where one could find the
> > distribution of notes in an instrument across an entire score, to show
> > students where [good] composers tend to have their instruments play.
> >
> > How hard would that be to implement as a function?
> 
> Probably easiest done as an engraver as then you have the timing
> information (absolute and bar number) available.

Perhaps I misunderstand Kieren and/or David, but I took Kieren's
idea to be a sort of 'spectral' analysis, whereas David's reply
seems to imply a 'temporal' analysis.  At least, I understand
Kieren to be wondering "what is the distribution of pitches
assigned to a given instrument throughout this score?" or less
technically, what portion of each instrument's range does this
score utilize?  This is somewhat like a "weighted ambitus" as
shown perhaps by a  bell curve which shows not only the highest
and lowest pitches, but also includes the weighting of which
pitches are used more frequently than others.

David's comment makes me wonder, "what group of instruments are
likely to be playing [at all; and how loudly] during any given
moment of the score, and how does the instrumentation (possibly
including the relative density [note count, dynamics]) change
through the timeline of the score?"  This makes my mind's eye
envision a line graph with dynamics as a dependent variable of
time, and differently colored (or dotted/dashed) lines showing
the relative amplitude (dynamics) of each instrument or group of
instruments (strings/brass/woodwinds/percussion,
kazoo/washtub/spoons, whatever).

Not that I'm putting this on anyone's to-do list!  I just wanted
to compliment both brainstormers for posing some interesting
questions.