Re: Is there an easy solution to across voice slurs

[Keith OHara]

Derek <cushy <at> shmerek.com> writes:

> The attached image is where the slur should start on the high Bb

> The stem down things are there because I am transcribing a score and that is
> how it is written but they are the part I want the slur to go over. 

Slurs almost never cross voices (in the musical sense) and your input looked
like a sensible way to show the music, except that the \\ creates *two* new
Voices (in the LilyPond sense) where you needed only one new temporary voice.

Generally, \\ causes me trouble so I forget about it:

\new Staff \relative c'' { \key bes\major
  \voiceOne bes4~ << 
    { bes8 r8}
    \new Voice { \voiceTwo bes,16 d f bes } >> 
  bes'2 \( \oneVoice g2 aes2 |
  f g4 ees4 | c8 d ees f f2 |
  ees4 \) bes,16 ees g bes <ees g>2 }

To try to answer the question in the subject, you /can/ ask LilyPond to
engrave slurs at the Staff level, so they can cross Voices, but this stops
being easy as soon as you have two simultaneous slurs on the staff, and
it also prevents slurs from following their Voice if the voice crosses
staves (as in piano music).  It is much easier to make the LilyPond Voices
correspond to the musical voices.

> if I were to
> google the lilypond documentation what am I actually looking for? 

The best search term I can think of is 'Voices', maybe.  I think the most 
helpful section is Learning Manual section 3.2.2.