Hi David,
I don’t know what software you’re using to create your Lilypond files, but what working with Python and abjad has taught me is that it’s best that softwares that produce Lilypond files don’t use any kind of shortcuts, they should write everything explicitly (and in absolute mode) instead. I suggest you program your software with that in mind: it’ll save you lots of headaches down the road. Leave shortcuts and relative mode only for manually generated files.
As for tied rest, I’ll just agree with Andrew that they don’t make sense. Your software will have to take tied groups of notes and remove the ties when converting notes to rests.
Cheers,
Martín.
On 22. Feb 2021, 09:09 +0100, David Bellows <davebellows@gmail.com>, wrote:
Hello Andrew,
Right, so I'm not asking for two rests to actually be tied. I was just
hoping that the behavior of a lone duration value would repeat the
rest right before it and not skip back till it finds a note.
For example, instead of {c4 r4 16} resulting in "C, rest, C", it would
be "C, rest, rest" with no ties anywhere.
But if that is not the expected behavior from most people then perhaps
adding a tie to the rest could tell LilyPond to make that lone
duration a rest instead of skipping back till it finds a note.
So {c4 r4~ 16) would result in: C, rest, rest (with no ties in the
actual sheet music). If not the tilde then perhaps some other symbol
to signify this behavior.
Why cant you just have a rest of the appropriate
duration? You can have dotted rests you know, and durations can be
scaled as can note durations.
My software can handle all normal durations including dotted ones. But
a quarter tied to a 16th can only be notated with a tie. There is no
other simple way to notate it which means I need two notes or two
rests in my LilyPond file. I don't think scaling the duration will
produce something that a performer would understand.
I'm sure I can eventually figure out how to make LilyPond's current
behavior work with my software, it's just that it will take a lot of
work. If a lone duration would use a previous rest instead of going
back to find a note, then it would be much easier for me to implement.
Dave
On Sun, Feb 21, 2021 at 11:23 PM Andrew Bernard
<andrew.bernard@gmail.com> wrote:
Ties rests make no musical sense, even in relation to programmatically
generated music. Why cant you just have a rest of the appropriate
duration? You can have dotted rests you know, and durations can be
scaled as can note durations.
a