[oll-user] Fw: [Challenges] Engraving challenge

[David W. <da...@mu...>]

From: Urs Liska

>> The other issue is that this is clearly an odd piece of music - the 
>> beaming
>> patterns are very atypical, and any music typesetting program with 
>> require
>> substantial hacking to set this.

>This is intentional - I would like to see how each program performs with
>extreme tasks.
>But we can discuss if this really is a good idea for a first challenge.
>I'd like to hear more opinions on this.

I'm fairly neutral on this.  As a notation software author I have no real
desire to reproduce idiosyncratic notation.  My prime objective is to make
'standard' notation quick and easy to enter, which I suppose means that
'extreme engraving tasks' as such are not what I'm about.   In fact since
Elaine Gould's excellent book 'Behind bars' came out in 2011, I've been
looking to improve where my software falls short of her standards, rather
then extend it to circumstances which fall well outside.

However, it is always interesting to look at exceptional cases, to see
whether the sense of the music can be reproduced in a readable fashion, even
if the exact engraving can't be.   For example I can already see that I
won't reproduce the strange quaver/semiquaver beaming patterns in this
piece, but they don't look particularly readable, and I don't really know
that I want to. (But maybe I'll change my mind when I've tried it).

My main concern is who is going to judge the results and on what basis.
Just the direction to 'take as long as you like' already skews the results
towards programs designed to reproduce any form of engraving with no real
concern about how long it takes, which, as I say, is not my objective at
all.    [I'm sure just using graphics software could reproduce it perfectly,
though it may take some time!]

Still I plan to have a look, though time is too valuable to spend a lot on
it!

Dave

David Webber
Mozart Music Software
http://www.mozart.co.uk/