Re: another question regarding ottava: why does Lilypond change the pitches?

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 01/11/2021 à 23:49, Kenneth Wolcott a écrit :
> Hi Kieren & Carl;
>
>    Well, since you have already provided an MWE that shows it works as
> documented, may I provide my full Lilypond code?  It is only a halfway
> completed Piano arrangement of "The Elephant" from the ""Carnival of
> the Animals", by Saint-Saens. It is not long and it is simple.
> Perhaps I'm doing something really stupid...

You're trying to enter the pitches as if the ottava were
not there, and add the ottava to make them sound and read
one octave lower. Just like with accidentals, LilyPond does
not think like that: you should enter the real pitch in
the way it sounds, and \ottava determines how to format it.
So you should simply add extra commas on all the notes
of the ottava.

This design choice separates input and layout. If you started
without ottava, and your teacher or publisher tells you that
you should really write these notes with an ottava to make
them more readable, you can just sprinkle \ottava in the code
without changing the pitches themselves.

Best,
Jean