brainstorming a way to temporarily flip direction of lyrics

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hello all,

We can temporarily change the direction of many grobs — Scripts, TextScripts, 
etc. — such that the usual effect is that they flip from being (e.g.,) beneath 
a context (e.g., the Staff that the Voice is a child of) to being above that 
context.

I’m wondering — brainstorming mode now — if there’s an easy way to extend that 
concept to contexts which ARE NOT contained by another context (as in the Voice 
∈ Staff example, above), but rather are adjacent to a second context. One 
obvious example is:

    <<
        \new Staff \someNotes
        \new Lyrics \someWords
    >>

If there were a small number of words that needed to be above the Staff, the 
current workaround is to add a whole new context, e.g.,

    <<
        \new Lyrics \someWordsAbove
        \new Staff \someNotes
        \new Lyrics \someWordsBelow
    >>

adjust staff-affinity/ies and add spacer rests as/if necessary, etc. Why 
[technically] can we not say, “\once \override LyricText.alignAboveContext = …” 
to move the attachment of that grob to “the other side” of the Staff context it 
is normally associated with and adjacent to.

A logical extension of this feature would be in a centered context like

    \new PianoStaff <<
        \new Staff \rhMusic
        \new Dynamics \dynamics
        \new Staff \lhMusic
    >>

allowing the “flipping” of dynamics above the upper Staff or below the lower 
Staff [without resorting to two extra Dynamics contexts].

Thanks,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden