flats in ancient notation?

[Andrew Hankinson]

Hi all,

I just started with Lilypond and was wondering if this is possible:  
I'm currently entering a some music in gregorian neumes (from the 1947 
ed. Liber Usualis)

Often flats are given a few notes before the actual sounding pitch, but 
I can't seem to find the code to actually insert a flat sign.  The 
problem with putting it with the actual note is that it everything gets 
smushed together and it looks horrible.

Any suggestions?  I'm running Lilypond 2.0.1 on OS X (fink install.)  I 
tried the newer versions but they broke on my system (10.3.3 on a G4)

Many thanks,

Andrew