Re: Finishing touches on hymn, lyrics spacing

[Ian Barclay]

Colin, thanks much for your suggestions. 

<<First, you should definitely put each part in a separate variable, rather than writing chords in the bass, e.g., and spacer rests in the tenor. It's much easier, and I find it more intuitive, to write the parts individually.>>

I did some songs like that when I was starting off, but I want the stems on each staff to go together as much as possible (which is how they normally appear in hymnals), and when I tried using 'partcombine' a few funny things always happened, disappearing stems and whatnot - I can't remember.  By now I am so accustomed to doing it this way I will probably stick with it.

<<Next, you might want to define midiInstrument at the part level rather than the score. That gives you the option of producing practice tracks by voice. I generally use a tool like Rosegarden to pan a single track fully left and put the others fully right. I believe there is code working through the review process which will allow me to do it inside LilyPond, but that may have to wait a while.>>

That is an interesting idea.  Thus far I have not had a need to produce tracks by voice but it would might make my work more useful to someone else.

<<You define staff-affinity for each verse; why not just do it once, in your layout block, where you already modify the Lyrics context?>>

I will definitely try that, thanks.  This started off because I needed a template for fuging tunes in which lyrics for each part were placed above and below the staff (and in those instances I did write out each part individually).  Of course that is unnecessary for most normal hymn/psalm tunes, and I am now putting each part in a fuging tune on its own staff - so, great suggestion.

<<Have you read through the Learning Manual, and the templates available in the Snippets? Ther is some pretty good stuff aimed directly at hymn settings and SATB arrangements.>>

I have read quite a bit of it and that is mainly how I got as far as I did.  I probably need to take a closer look at the snippets - but I think I was looking at them when I got stuck on nonstaff-nonstaff spacing and all that.  My comprehension of the manual/snippets isn't always that great as my brain has never handled text input software all that well, but there is a lot I like about LilyPond so I am not giving up.

<<I like the look of what you've got so far, though! My comments are not criticism, just ideas to help you type less, and to have fewer places to look for problems.>>

Exactly, that's what I'm going for - thanks again! 

Ian