Ties and Slurs

[Ryan M. Rifkin]

Hi.

I have three questions on ties and slurs.  I'm using lilypond 1.4.6
curently.

1.  I'm typesetting a piano piece, and the first chord in the right
hand needs to be three and a half beats long (in 4/4 time), so I'm
trying to tie a dotted half to a quarter.  So the beginning of the
right-hand portion of the score reads

       \relative c'' \sequential { 
         < a2. c2.  > ~ < a8 c8 > d8
         c8 f,8  <des8 g8> <d2 aes'2> ~ <d8 aes'8>
       }

When I compile, I get a warning message such as:
No ties were created!:
         < a2. c2.  > ~
                        < a8 c8 > d8

Which certainly seems to be true.  This seems to be a problem
associated with the beginning of the piece --- if I repeat the measure
later, the ties get created.

2.  I'd like to legato slur the first two two note chords in the
second measure, but I don't know how.  The best I've been able to do
so far is:

         c8 f,8 <des8 g8 ) >  < ) d2 aes'2>  ~  <d8 aes'8>  r4


3.  Is there any way to tie a grace note to the note it precedes?

Thanks so much for any help you can provide.

Cheers,

rif