Re: Curious thing about ties

[Andrew Bernard]

Hi Robert,

I for one don't think lilypond should be making decisions for you about tie direction based on an idea of sequenced phrases. I know lilypond strives to do as much good layout as it can without requiring tweaks, but this seems a step too far. There is nothing mentioned about this in the NR as far as I know. I would say it is undesirable, and a defect. Others may differ. I would go so far as to attempt to raise this as a bug on the bug list for further evaluation.

To work around this, bug or not, you can just control the tie direction, for example:

\override Tie.direction = #UP

In most of my scores I am resigned to having to specify direction for each and every tie with ^ and _ to precisely express what my composer colleague writes, so I tend not to notice the behaviour you have spotted.

Andrew

On 15 November 2016 at 07:09, Robert Schmaus <address@hidden> wrote:

Dear Ponderers,

something I just came across while pondering away: in the following
snippet, there are two ties across barlines.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\version "2.19.35"

\score {
   \relative c'' {

     | a2 r8 a8 ( a ) b ~
     | b2 r8 b8 ( a ) b ~
     | b2 r2
   }
}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I've wondered why in the first instance, the tie is a down-tie, while in
the second it's an up-tie (see attached screenshot). Is there a reason
for this? Something like visual balance?

I'm running Lilypond on a Mac. And I should add, that I'm really just
curious, I don't have a problem with this behaviour.
I'm guessing that this can only occur with notes inhabiting the middle
staff line, right?

Anyway, take care,
Robert