At 11:37 05/03/2015 +1100, Andrew Bernard wrote:
I have asked this question on the list in the past, but no solution
seems to be available. The topic is fixed width measures. I have
contemporary music that has lots of complex tuplets within tuplets
and rapidly varying time signatures (New Complexity School). The
composer I am working with draws all his scores by hand, and uses a
fixed measure width notation to help the performer understand the
very complex rhythms, with a fixed physical measure length
corresponding to a specific fixed interval of time. Actually, several
composers do this.
I have tried everything to do with proportional notation and new
spacing sections but I can't seem to succeed. Is there any way to
instruct lilypond to use a fixed length, absolute size measure?
I see that others have wanted this capability for fixed width
measures for chord charts, overriding the lovely and subtle way that
lilypond has of moving the bar lines on the page around a little for
readability and aesthetics.
I am attaching the smallest most simplified snippet I can make that
shows unequal measures. If anybody can make something like this have
fixed width measures, let me know!
I am aware that this goes entirely against classical engraving
principles, and all of lilypond's aesthetic architecture, but it is
2015 now! Does this require internal code hacking of the layout
engine somewhere deep down below the user level? It's frustrating to
be defeated by a man with a pencil who can simply rule lines! :-)
o Insert "indent = 0" - so that your first system is the same length
as the other.
o Change the value in "proportionalNotationDuration = #(ly:make-moment
1/20)" to 1/28 - following the advice in the Notation manual: "How do
we select the right reference duration to pass to
proportionalNotationDuration? Usually by a process of trial and error,
beginning with a duration close to the fastest (or smallest) duration
in the piece."
Now I see three systems, each with two bars of exactly equal length.
At smaller staff sizes, I can see two systems of three bars each - but
they are not quite of equal length. The problem seems to be the time
signature, occurring in only the first system. Can you put up with no
time signature? Or with time signatures in both systems? Or (probably
best) with an invisible time signature (to take up appropriate space)
in subsequent systems?