Re: brainstorming a really smart system engraver

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hello again!

I think I have the PERFECT solution to this problem, if only \quoteDuring did 
the following two things:
   1. Quoted lyrics.
   2. Observed \RemoveEmptyStaves as if the quoted portion was empty (i.e., if 
the quoted material did NOT stop a hara-kiri action).

Then, I could simply write a single line (e.g., the soprano), and \quoteDuring 
it into the other "choral unison" parts. When another (non \quoteDuring-ed) 
portion of the score demanded the "expansion" of the score to 2 or more staves, 
the \quoteDuring portion would display the appropriate notes and lyrics.

Does this make sense?
Is it possible with some existing Lilypond features, or would it require new 
features?

Thanks,
Kieren.

On 2012-Dec-14, at 08:47, Kieren MacMillan wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> Like many people on this list, I engrave a number of choral works using 
> Lilypond. Like a smaller subset of those people, I engrave a number of large 
> and very large works (musicals, operas, extended choral works, etc.), which 
> require multiple editions (full score, pianovocal score, vocal book, etc.) 
> each with their own font sizes, system and page breaks, and so on.
> 
> There are many times when two or more of my vocal or choral lines share 
> material — for example, in my "Wither's Carol", the entire first verse (with 
> the exception of a single two-measure chunk) is in "choral unison" (meaning 
> everyone singing the same notes and words in their own usual octave) — 
> whereas there are other very contrapuntal sections where material is totally 
> independent. Hence, there are sections where a score COULD be adequately 
> represented using only 1 choral staff, and other sections that require 2 or 3 
> or 4 (or even more) independent staves.
> 
> Ultimately, I would like to have Lilypond choose the correct number of staves 
> so that horizontal and vertical spacing is optimal, using partcombine (or 
> 'partexplode'?), cueing, etc., to accomplish its task.
> 
> I realize this is an AI nightmare and well outside Lilypond's current scope. 
> So as a half-measure, I would love to be able to tag certain sections as 
> "requires X staves", and then have Lilypond choose the least number of 
> required staves based on system/line breaking. As I [manually] change the 
> line breaks, the systems would automagically "expand" or "contract" as 
> necessary/possible to accommodate the new layout. Unfortunately, the current 
> tagging system is insufficient to do this, as far as I can tell.
> 
> Can anyone think of a reasonably easy way to implement this feature?
> If so, I'll be happy to sponsor it.
> 
> Thanks,
> Kieren.