Re: Unknown Schumann piece

[Brian Barker]

At 13:09 04/05/2014 +0200, Martin Tarenskeen wrote:
> What are the rules for the vertical placement of rests in polyphonic 
> writing? Are there any? For example in my Schumann piece, lower 
> staff, Lilypond did a very ugly choice by default and I had to use 
> something like b'\rest even for this very simple piece. (Don't know 
> if that's the correct placement but it looks fine to my eyes)

Elaine Gould says (pp. 36-7):
> For clarity, upper-part rest are usually placed above the centre 
> stave-line, lower-part rests below the centre line
> When one part lies outside the stave (on ledger lines), crotchet, 
> quaver, and shorter-value rests for the other part may move back to 
> the centre of the stave
> Semibreve and minim rests must never stray across the centre stave line
> When both parts have rests simultaneously, as in strict contrapuntal 
> writing, separate these with at least one stave-line
> Many editions place all minim and semibreve rests only on the 
> outside stave-lines, to avoid confusion; some avoid rests on the 
> middle stave-line, for the same reason

This last remark appears to describe (and validate?) what Lilypond 
does by default. But it's clearly not the only way.

Brian Barker