Re: best practice(s) for divisi choral works

[Phil Holmes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kieren MacMillan" <address@hidden>
To: "Lilypond-User Mailing List" <address@hidden>
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2014 2:23 AM
Subject: best practice(s) for divisi choral works


Hello all!

I’m about to dive in to [re]engraving a choral piece.

Like many choral works, it regularly alternates between “choral unison” 
(which can effectively be displayed using a single staff), homophonic 
sections (which require two staves), and polyphonic stuff (which require 
more than two staves, usually four). For example, the first verse of my 
piece requires a minimum of
   A) 1 staff for mm 1-8
   B) 2 staves for mm 9-12
   C) 4 staves for mm 13-16
   D) 1 staff for mm 18-19

There are at least two obvious ways to code this, with the intention of 
optimizing the code:

1. Write the soprano (melody) part out in full, quote it in the other four 
chorus parts during sections A and D (i.e., for the “unisons”), and use 
\showStaff (\showLyrics, resp.) and \letStaffVanish (\letLyricsVanish, 
resp.) to help Lilypond make appropriate layout decisions.

2. Write everything in one \DivisibleStaff, splitting out the parts as 
necessary.

What is the consensus (if there is one) about the best practice?
It seems to me that #1 is better — but that may simply be because I don’t 
know the \DivisibleStaff mechanism that well.
(I always use the current unstable/development version, in case that makes a 
difference to the answer.)

Thanks,
Kieren.
_______________________


Whenever I've done this, I've used the following:

Put the all the soprano music in a single voice in a single staff, with 
\voiceOne \oneVoice depending on whether it's solo or with the alto.

Put the alto in a single voice in the soprano staff, with \voiceTwo and 
spacer rest or FMRs as appropriate.

Ditto tenor and bass.

All the above uses \RemoveEmptyStaves, of course.

Why do you need four staves?

--
Phil Holmes