Re: Adjust grace note stem length and indentation?

[Mats Bengtsson]

Michael Lakes wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I got wo questions :-)
>
> Can I adjust the stem length of the grace notes such as the one below to 
> make it shorter?  

Of course you can, it's LilyPond, right? ;-)
To find out the answer, go to the section of the on-line manual on
Stems. At the bottom of the page, you will find a link to the program
reference for the Stem layout object, with a list of the properties
that can be set and their default values. Unfortunately, it doesn't
show to default values for grace notes.
The relevant property here is 'lengths', but I actually think that
the property 'stem-shorten' is even more relevant, since both the
grace note and the main note have stems that are forced upwards.

Also, why don't you use \accacciatura instead of \grace? It gives
you both the stroke through the stem and the slur for free.

I modified your example to

\score { \notes \relative c''' {
    \key d \major \time 6/8
    <<{
    \override Slur #'attachment-offset = #'((0 . -.5) 0 . -.5)
    \acciaccatura {\override Stem #'stem-shorten = #'(.6 ) a8 }
       a4. b8 cis8 d8}\\
    {fis,,4. s4.}\\
    {}\\
    {d'8\rest cis8 e8 <g d e,>4.}>>

    }

which I think looks better.

By the way, why don't you use \relative to save typing all these
quotes to get the right octave?

> And how can I indent the last line of notes?

That's not really supported for the moment.

> I need to make a D.C. al Coda ... I thought raggedlast was use for 
> indentation, but it doesn't.

The raggedlast variable affects the right hand end of the last line, not
the left hand.

   /Mats