Thanks to Phil Holmes’ suggestion to learn move about using explicit voices I resolved one of my major problems with the piece I'm working on. Thanks much.The second problem remains. How can I improve the vertical alignment of pedal marks? The piece I am working on has a lot of situations like the following:I know that this is acceptable at some level, but it would look MUCH nicer (neater and more intentional) if all of the pedal marks were vertically aligned rather than arrayed here and there to avoid other objects. I realize that not everyone would want this and that for many pieces it would be needed, but for the one I'm working on if all the pedal brackets lined up (at least within a row), it would be a marked improvement, especially as this piece is already quite visually noisy.
You can move the \sustain commands to a Dynamics context:
\new Staff { \clef bass c,1\sustainOn c,1\sustainOff c,1 c,,1\sustainOn c,,1\sustainOff }
<<
\new Staff { \clef bass c,1 c,1 c,1 c,,1 c,,1 }
\new Dynamics { s1\sustainOn s1\sustainOff s1 s1\sustainOn s1\sustainOff }
>>
Regards,
Nathan