Re: One staff or 4?

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

Ian Turner <address@hidden> writes:

> What do you guys think? Should I do this all on one staff, which merely
> changes meaning, or should I do it as four staffs?

Well, if the meaning gets ambiguous, you should use more staffs (2 or
4), unless you print it for people that know their parts very well.

In any case, you'd use a separate 'voice' for each part, so you can
try both.

> Also, if I go with the former, is there a way to make lilypond's midi
> output include the men's voices, an octave lower?

Midi output translates a staff to a track, so unless you want to do
real trickery, it's best to have separate paper and midi scores, and
split midi into 4 voices:

\score{
  ..
  \paper {}
}


\score {
  <
    \context Staff=one {
       \property Staff.transposing = #-12
       \voice1
    }
    \context Staff=two {
    ..
  >
  \midi {}
}


-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org