Length of stems

[donald_j_axel]

    SUMMARY: Am I shortening stems the right way?
             Can anyone tell if I do things the best way?



    As an exercise for complicated piano voicing I tried to put
down the first bars of Chopin op. 28.1 (C Major Prelude).

    As expected I ran into several problems and I would like
someone to have a look at my solutions - please mail me, or just
leave a comment on http://www.d-axel.dk/cgi-bin/blox-danish/

or

http://www.d-axel.dk/cgi-bin/blox-danish/2003/12/14#Preludium-28,1-x5
where you can also get the source (or have a look at it in your
browser, click on the note example) (I will translate to English
soon, then it will be http://www.d-axel.dk/cgi-bin/blox-dax.cgi)

    There are two compromises left to solve, but it works,
beautifully at that.



    FIRST ISSUE:
    ============

    For one thing the stems for the lower middle voice must be a
little shorter and the beam must be thinner. To dimension the beam
can be made with some Scheme code.

    I have already shortened the stem, though I am not sure that
I am doing it the right way:

  \property Voice.Stem 
      \set #'beamed-extreme-minimum-free-lengths = #'(1.0 0.4 0.2)

  % \property Voice.Stem \set #'stem-shorten = #'(3.0 2.5)

As you can see the second statement is out-commented, but when
active it didn't do anything, even if I changed the numbers.

I would like the stem a little shorter than the result which I
obtained.


    SECOND ISSUE
    ============

    The slur which must be used tell a piano player that the style
is rather legato (even if it is the pedal which makes the legato
effect - I will write about the playing technique elsewhere!)

    In my setup of voices the slur should pass from bottom voice up
to the top voice, last note in the bar (et seque).

    I think I can hack that by making a silent invisible voice, but
I am not prepared to do that kind of hack yet!


    THIRD ISSUE
    -----------

Actually there are one more which I am working on, but the
documentation describes that one. The second half bar 1/8 rest
must be moved downwards.


    I wouldn't write this kind of petitesse specialist questions
if Jan and Han-Wen Nienhuys had not written about the perfection
of note-printing in a way so that I am 100% sure that these issues
are appreciated.

    I hope this is the right place to pose a question like this.

    Regards!

-- 
donald_j_axel(at)get2net.dk -- http://d-axel.dk/