Note/Rest/Stem collision resolution

[Joshua Haberman]

Hello, I am new to the mailing list.

I've been using Lilypond 1.3.120 to typeset a Bruhns organ prelude and
fugue, and I've found that Lilypond gives up very easily when it comes
to note and rest collision. :-) I get a whole screenfull of "warning:
too many notes for rest collision" and "warning: Too many clashing
notecolumns. Ignoring them."

It seems to give up whenever there are more than two voices within an
octave or so of each other, which is unfortunate since its such a common
occurance in the music I'm working on right now.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any sort of stem collision at all. For
example, if you have two simultaneous notes a third apart in different
voices with stems in the same direction, they look like they're on the
same stem, as opposed to shifting one slightly to the side to keep the
stems separate.

What can I do to improve Lilypond's collision resolution? I have no idea
where to even start; I don't really understand Lilypond's implementation
and I know very little Scheme (though I'm willing to learn).

Any pointers would be appreciated!

Joshua

-- 
Joshua Haberman <address@hidden>,  University of Puget Sound
"Delaying decisions" is too often a euphemism for "avoiding thinking."
                                            -Bjarne Stroustrup