RE: Parallel music, adding a voice, stem not appearing

[Joseph N. Srednicki]

Hi Andrew (and others on the mailing list):

 

Thanks for taking the time to write your suggestion.

 

I pasted your recommended solution into Lilypond. (I also installed Lilypond 2.19.38 in Windows to make sure that I am running the same version.)

 

When I compile, I receive a warning about an unterminated tie for the soprano in measures 1 and 2.

 

To resolve the situation, I tried reversing the order in the temporary voices in measure two. In other words, I put the c in the upper voice and the a flat in the lower voice. This rearrangement did not get the tie to appear.

 

Can you or anyone else suggest how to make the tie appear in the soprano c in the two measures?

 

Thanks to anyone who can offer a suggestion.

 

Joe Srednicki

 

From: Andrew Bernard [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Saturday, April 9, 2016 11:13 PM
To: Joseph N. Srednicki <address@hidden>; address@hidden
Subject: Re: Parallel music, adding a voice, stem not appearing

 

Hi Jospeh,

 

An erstwhile organist myself, hopefully I can give you an answer.

 

For me, while parallel music is described in the NR, for pieces of any length I find it too hard to untangle what voice is what. Better in my opinion to use explicit voices outright and be done with it. Then you have at your control all the lilypond machinery for adjusting voices, including offsets and so on. Generally you know when you have to introduce highly specifically coded tweaks for column offsets to get things to work that you are on the wrong track. Lilypond is very good at working out layout issues when you use the standard techniques.

 

Here is a rewrite of your score, using an absolutely standard multi voice technique for piano, or organ. I put the voices together in the staves they normally live in, but you can separate them all out if you like.

 

You are correct in saying a temporary voice is needed for the A flat.

 

One quirk you will find is the matter of the dot on the A flat. You can play around with this as you see fit, but the voicing offsets seem fine to me.

 

The output compares favourably with the score I found on IMSLP.

 

I would recommend this style of working rather than the parallel music approach. One can argue that it is simpler to get voicing matters under control. At least, I think so.

 

You can find the standard template for piano in the MN in Section A 3.1.

 

 

Andrew

 

 

 

— snip

 

\version "2.19.39"

\language "english"

 

global = {

  \key c \minor

  \time 3/4

}

 

rh = \relative c'' {

  <<

    {

      % soprano

      \voiceOne

      c2.~ |

      <<

        {

          \stemDown

          \shiftOn

          \once \hide Dots

          af

        }

        \\

        {

          \shiftOn c

        }

      >>

    }

    \new Voice

    {

      % alto

      \voiceTwo

      bf!4 af g~ |

      g4 f ef |

    }

  >>

}

 

lh = \relative c {

  \clef bass

  <<

    {

      \voiceOne

      % tenor

      \change Staff= "right" \stemDown g''4 \skip 2 |

      \change Staff = "left" \stemUp c,2. |

    }

    \new Voice

    {

      \voiceTwo

      % bass

      \change Staff="right" ef4 \change Staff = "left" c4 bf! |

      r4 af g |

    }

  >>

}

 

pedal = \relative c {

  \clef bass

  c2.~ |

  c2. |

}

 

\score {

  \new PianoStaff

  <<

    \new Staff = "right" {

      \global

      \rh

    }

    \new Staff = "left" {

      \global

      \lh

    }

 

    \new Staff = "pedal" {

      \global

      \pedal

    }

  >>

}

— snip