Re: Bug in \relative parsing?

Oh. I had missed freestanding durations could be a thing. Nvm then, sorry
for the noise

Luca


On Fri, 21 Aug 2026, 09:02 David Kastrup, <[email protected]> wrote:

> Luca Fascione <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > Hi folks,
> > I noticed that this
> >
> > \score {
> >   \new Staff {
> >     f
> >   \relative a'4 { c }
> >   }
> > }
> >
> > behaves unexpectedly (I'm using 2.24.4): it renders f3, f3, c3 in violin
> > clef.
> > In my head, the c3 is expected, because the \relative in this case is
> > parsed like this I'm guessing
> >
> > f \relative { a'4 } { c }
> >
> > ie. an f3 in absolute mode, an a'4 in relative mode (defaulting its
> > reference pitch to c3), then a one-note block in absolute mode. Except
> that
> > the note rendered should be a3, not f3.
>
> No, that is not a bug, and your understanding is wrong.  \relative takes
> a _pitch_ argument as its start, not a note, so this is parsed as
>
> \relative a' { 4 } { c }
>
> (braces here just for understanding, no actual sequential music is
> involved for rendering F3) with 4 being a repeat of F3 since that is the
> last pitch of a note appearing in context before it.  You could replace
> a' with a'''' and get the same result.
>
> Unpitched durations just take their pitch from the preceding note in the
> music expression.
>
> --
> David Kastrup
>
>
>