if I need a `p espr.' mark, it's probably best (from a typographical
point of view) to write
c\markup { \dynamic "p" \italic " espr." }
No, this is not the best solution from a typographical point of view.
If you for example have a hairpin ending on the same note and want
your dynamic indication vertically aligned with the hairpin, you should
instead use make-dynamic-script, as described in the Notation Reference,
section "New dynamic marks". Tricks to get horizontal alignment
on the p have been discussed recently on the mailing list.
to correctly align the horizontal and vertical distance of the `espr.'
string with the `p' dynamic sign. However, this has the disadvantage
that the MIDI performer no longer recognizes the `p' as such.
My idea was to simply adjust the MIDI volume manually. However, this
is much more tricky than expected, since LilyPond apparently doesn't
provide a simple means to do that.
Yes, it would be very convenient if make-dynamic-script was extended
so you also could specify the MIDI interpretation of the new dynamics
mark.