Re: (no subject)

[Mats Bengtsson]

This usage question which I would have sent to 
address@hidden, actually turned out to
involve a bug (in the documentation). I redirected
the question to lilypond-user anyway.

> I tried to set :
> 
> \property Voice.Beam \set #'staff-position = #7
> 
> for two notes in different voices (soprano and alt).
> 
> That worked for notes like
> 
>  #####   <- this position higher
>  |   |
>  |   |
> O/  O/
> 
> but not for notes like
> 
>  |\      <- this position cannot be set higher.
>  | )
>  |
> O/

Yes, the Beam settings are specific to beamed notes(!) and 
won't affect notes with flags.

> That is a problem when I wanted to merge two notes from different voices=20
> 
>  |\      <- not possible
>  | )
>  |
> O|
>  |
> O/

If you want two notes sharing the same stem (and flag), 
you put both in the same Voice. Example:

c8 <c e> c2 

> but got instead the nonmerged one:
> 
>  |\      <- not possible
>  | )
>  |\
> O| )
>  |
> O/

If the two notes belong to different voices, why not 
let the stems of the lower voice point downwards?
Example:

<\context Voice=up {\voiceOne e8 f e f e2}
 \context Voice=lower {\voiceTwo c8 d c d c2}>

(The \voiceOne and \voiceTwo commands are shorthands for
property settings the set the direction of stems, slurs, 
ties and dynamics.)

> In the example file 'example.ly' is sample from the test. The problem
> raised when I was typing some quite tricky polyphonic music of
> Rachmaninoff. I am quite new to lilypond syntax, but eager to make it
> work nice. Hence this might also by my own mistake if I don't know
> right property to use.

How to find the correct property:

In the on-line documentation (also available in the
form of info files in your local installation and
HTML files if you install the additional documentation
RPM or Debian package), click on lilypond-internals,
and find the relevant Grob (graphical object). 
Since you can't find any "Flag" Grob, try to click
on the "link called Stem". This will give you a 
long list of available properties. Among others, 
you will find a property called stem-length that 
sounds like a reasonable choice. Unfortunately this
is a bug in the documentation, the correct name
is "length", so if you want to set the the stem
length of an unbeamed note, do:

\property Voice.Stem \set #'length = #7

but trying to match the flags of two separate 
notes using this method sound like a bad idea, 
I prefer the methods mentioned above.

To be honest, I've encountered exactly this problem  
a few times with notes in separate Voice contexts
with the same direction and used the following 
ugly solution

<\context Voice=up {\voiceOne e8 f e f e2}
 \context Voice=lower {\stemUp c4*1/2 d c d c2}>

which works since the lower note won't get any flag of
its own.

  /Mats