Simultaneous-notes misplacement

[James Harkins]

And, another case where I'm not sure Lilypond has done the right thing.

The first four notes should sound simultaneously. In the first score, three 
layout problems make it harder to understand that intent:

- The notes are arranged in three distinct columns of notes: C at left, B and E 
in the middle, and F to the right. In a Bach solo violin fugue, you might need 
to have four simultaneous notes in more than two horizontal positions, but this 
is not that case.

- The second C 16th note is placed underneath the F, which misleads the eye 
into thinking that this 16th note should be simultaneous with the whole-note 
chord. Wrong -- it should actually be the first 16th.

- The first notes in the voice-two rhythm are visually separated by the 
voice-one chord.

Fortunately, it's easy to adjust -- I worried that force-hshift would mess up 
the spacing between the 16th notes, but it's actually quite clean. It also 
follows the heuristic I've used for years in handwritten notation to handle 
simultaneous 2nd intervals:

- If the stem is up, start at the bottom of the chord; if down, start at the 
top.
- Add the notes one by one in the same vertical column, as long as the interval 
between notes is a third or more.
- When the next note is only a second away, shift that note to the opposite 
side of the stem. Then the next note reverts to the "normal" side.

Following that, by hand, I would have written B on the left of the stem, 
switched to the right for C, then E on the left and F on the right, as in the 
second score.

So I have my doubts about LP's default behavior here.


\version "2.15.36"

\score {
  \new Staff \relative c' {
    <<
      \new Voice { \voiceOne <b e f>1 }
      \new Voice {
        \voiceTwo
        c16 c r c ~  c8 c16 c  c c c r  c c r c
      }
    >>
  }
}

\score {
  \new Staff \relative c' {
    <<
      \new Voice { \voiceOne <b e f>1 }
      \new Voice {
        \voiceTwo
        \once \override NoteColumn #'force-hshift = #2
        c16 c r c ~  c8 c16 c  c c c r  c c r c
      }
    >>
  }
}


hjh


--
James Harkins /// dewdrop world
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