Hairpin on single note

[David Sanders]

Hi,

I'm planning to resume using lilypond after a rather long break.  I will upgrade
to one of the latest versions (2.7.15+) on linux.

One of the most annoying things I found when transcribing music was the
necessity of entering hairpins on single notes with the very clumsy notation of
the type

<< {c1} {s4 \< s s s \!} >>

I was wondering if someone has written a scheme function or whatever to make
this kind of thing simpler?

Thanks,

David.