Re: Breath mark default size and position

[Simon Albrecht]

Am 05.09.2015 um 13:11 schrieb MarcM:
> > The default Lilypond breath mark is rather anaemic and is placed on the
> > top
> > staff line rather than where I normally see it in commercial scores, which
> > is above the staff (see attached example).
> Like Nick i've always seen the breath mark as a comma and higher above the
> staff.

There are wonderful facilities to achieve that:
%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.19.25"

{
  \override BreathingSign.outside-staff-priority = 1
  \override BreathingSign.stencil = #ly:text-interface::print
  \override BreathingSign.text = ","
  \override BreathingSign.font-size = 3
  c'' \breathe c''
}
%%%%%%%%%%%

BreathingSign uses the outside-staff-interface 
<http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/internals/breathingsign>, 
so you can easily set outside-staff-priority; and the text stencil is 
explained in 
<http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/modifying-stencils>.

I’m thrilled myself how easy and manageable this is – big thanks to 
those who made it possible :-)
> The music from 1900 i am typesetting is using a comma as well.

Personally I must say: I positively adore the Feta BreathingSign used in 
LilyPond for its elegance and would never want to exchange it. But I can 
confirm e.g. from 
<http://imslp.org/wiki/M%C3%B6rike-Chorliederbuch,_Op.19_(Distler,_Hugo)> that 
the comma-like appearance is common.
> Wikipedia shows it as a comma too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath_mark

I hardly think that a Wikipedia entrance referring to someone at 
University of Virginia is a valuable reference.

Yours, Simon