Re: Odd vertical spacing of lyrics

[Keith OHara]

James Bailey <derhindemith <at> googlemail.com> writes:

> the smallest snippet I could produce (in 10 minutes) is attached.
> 
> Attachment (Funeral Sentences_2.12.ly): application/octet-stream, 2554 bytes
> 
So you use a lyrics line for each of the four SATB parts, with \lyricsto taking 
timing from the appropriate voice, and another 'choir' lyrics line for when 
they sing together, that specifies timing explicitly for each syllable and uses 
\skip when they sing separately. Looks very clear.

> This will probably make a ton of sense once I understand what a 'staff-
> affinity' is, but just reading this,
> it looks like I have to put a marker at the top and bottom of each system so 
> that lilypond knows where the
> systems begin and end. That certainly shouldn't be the case. 

My talking abut markers was speculation on how we might change Lilypond to be a 
little smarter, not something we would need to add to our input files.


> Based on the last sentence there, am I to understand that lilypond 
> doesn't really know where to attach
> lyrics to? It makes sense for the lyrics to be placed as close as
>reasonably possible to the bottom of the
> staff containing the voice they're attached to. 
>That was the old behavior, yes? 

I don't think so. Remember we had the option pick any Voice we want for timing, 
with \lyricsto, and to place the lyrics, with alignBelowContext, near a 
completely different Staff.

It seems to make sense for Lilypond to infer which Staff the lyrics should stay 
with based on align(Above|Below)Context, so to try it out I just inserted 
affinity-direction setting each time you had align(Above|Below)Context :
alignAbovecontext = ?? affinity-direction = #DOWN
alignBelowcontext = ?? affinity-direction = #UP

Two things have me stumped: The tenor line is still too far from its staff, and 
collapses with the choir line. If things becomes clear after dinner I'll post 
again.