Re: unmetered music - page breaks and empty bar lines

[James Bailey]

On Jan 2, 2011, at 3:23 PM, Peter Van Kranenburg wrote:

> On 1/2/11 3:03 PM, Sven Axelsson wrote:
>> On 2 January 2011 14:33, Peter Van Kranenburg
>> <address@hidden>  wrote:
>>> Dear list,
>>> 
>>> I'm typesetting unmetered music. My question is: what is the right (or best)
>>> approach to do so?
>>> 
>>> If I set Score.timing to false, I have to insert \bar "" everywhere in order
>>> to let lilypond figure out a nice layout. That's tedious.
>>> 
>>> My current approach is this:
>>> 
>>> ----
>>> \layout {
>>>  \context {
>>>        \Score
>>>        \remove "Bar_number_engraver"
>>>        \override BarLine #'transparent = ##t
>>>        \override TimeSignature #'transparent = ##t
>>>  }
>>>  \context {
>>>          \PianoStaff
>>>          \override SpanBar #'stencil =
>>>          #(lambda (grob)
>>>                (if (string=? (ly:grob-property grob 'glyph-name) "|")
>>>                        (set! (ly:grob-property grob 'glyph-name) ""))
>>>                (ly:span-bar::print grob))
>>>  }
>>> }
>>> ----
>>> 
>>> At the beginning of the music I do: \set Timing.defaultBarType = ""
>>> 
>>> So, I set the music with meter - providing lilypond many good points to
>>> insert line breaks - and I make all barlines empty and hide the meter. The
>>> problem is that the (empty) bar lines still occupy space, causing the notes
>>> to be spaced unevenly (see attached example - the bottom part is where the
>>> bar lines are when they are not empty. The space before the final note is
>>> really bad).
>>> 
>>> I tried to set the next-note distance to 0 in the space-alist of barline,
>>> but that didn't remove all horizontal space.
>>> 
>>> Is there a better way to do this?
>> 
>> Try
>> 
>> \context { \Staff \remove "Bar_engraver" }
>> 
>> That appears to do what you need.
>> 
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion. This has the desired effect on the note spacing, 
> but it raises other problems:
> 
> 1. I cannot have the final bar line
> 2. Clefs and key signatures are not printed at the start of systems
> 3. line breaks occur everywhere, also in the middle of beams, etc.
> 
> Unfortunately, the balance is negative.
> 
> best,
> Peter

minor change since you said you needed a final barline:
\version "2.12.3"
\layout {
   \context { \Score \remove Timing_translator \remove Bar_number_engraver }
   \context { \Staff \override TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
   }
}
music = {
   \override Staff.BarLine #'stencil = ##f
   \repeat unfold 32 { \repeat unfold 2 { a8[ a a a] } }
   \revert Staff.BarLine #'stencil
   \bar "|."
}
\score { \music \layout {} }