Re: Is a cross-staff chord with ties possible in lilypond?

[Helge Hafting]

On 21. april 2011 06:47, Jay Anderson wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Helge Hafting<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > I am trying to enter a piece by Grieg, which contains the attached
> > interesting construct.
> >
> > The manual shows how to write out an arpeggio like this,
> > using a set of consecutive notes all tied to a chord.
> >
> > Unfortunately, these consecutive notes also cross from the lower to the
> > upper staff.
> > They have a common beam, so one voice jumps from one staff to another. So
> > far, so good. But tieing to the cross-staff chord that follows doesn't work.
> >
> > A cross-staff chord must be entered in two voices, because you can't switch
> > staff
> > _inside_ a chord. (I tried, it was a syntax error.)
> >
> > But ties seems to work in the same voice only. So I can make the lower ties
> > work, but not also the upper ones.
> >
> > Is this possible, or is there currently a limitation of lilypond?
> >
> > If there is a solution, I hope it also works for the midi output. So simply
> > forcing some curved lines is not a good or complete solution.
>
> Yes, it's possible (and to work with midi too), but it can get
> complicated. Below is pretty close (without dynamics, articulations,
> arpeggios, etc.).

Thanks. I see it is possible to print what I want - using a lot of 
'fakery' with hidden notes. MIDI plays the hidden notes also, so I'll 
need to write the same music twice. Once for MIDI, and once for PDF.


> - Cross staff chords aren't really a limitation of lilypond. They're
> mostly just awkward to work with because, as you said, you must enter
> them in separate voices and manually lengthen the stem (and remove
> flags for shorter durations).
> - Ties across voices aren't possible. You can fake them by hiding
> identical tied notes in the other voice.

I see. Ties must be in a single voice. A cross-staff beam also have
all notes in a single voice. But a cross-staff chord must be
in two voices, because you can't switch staff without moving
forward in time.

So I wish I could switch staff within a chord construct. That would
help in several ways:

1. My example would be trivial to produce: a cross-staff beam with
   ties to a cross-staff chord. Classical composers do that
   now and then.

   A staff switch within a chord would allow this construct to
   exist in a single voice, with no hidden notes and MIDI+PDF
   from the same source.

2. Cross-staff chords could get simpler too. Switch staff inside
   a chord, and lilypond would know to connect the stems.

Helge Hafting