Re: bars and clefs

[stk]

> . . . however, with a :|: bar, when
> inverting the order, the clef is almost stuck to it...

You might try

     \once \override Staff.Clef #'extra-X-extent = #'(-2 . 1)
     \clef tenor

which would give you 2 more units of space to the left of the
clef symbol and 1 more unit of space to the right of the clef.
("tenor":  sorry, I deleted so much e-mail that I've lost track
of what clef you actually wanted.)

I'm sitting at a non-LilyPond machine at the moment, so I can't test
that to verify it, but I've used similar commands to provide extra space
to the left or right of various musical graphic objects ("grobs").

-- Tom