Re: Horizontal note spacing

[Abraham Lee]

Andrew,

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016, Andrew Bernard <address@hidden> wrote:

Greetings All,

 

With the reasonably complex contemporary music that I engrave for my colleague, I often come across situations where lilypond spaces note stems in a beamed group unevenly, but we would like them to be equally spaced. Lilypond is certainly doing the right thing, but we particularly want an optically even spacing rather than the probably technically correct engraving practice that lilypond produces.

 

I use proportional spacing in my actual scores, but have not included that in the MWE, as it makes no difference. The MWE here shows the uneven spacing of the stems in the grace note figures. It would be excellent if I could shift the note columns around to even this up visually. I am not saying this is a bug – just an effect I would like to have control over.

 

A function would be nice, as I have hundreds of these cases. Is this possible by any stretch of the imagination?

 

[Sorry this is a bit unminimal but I need to illustrate the matter exactly, and I wanted to show two examples of this, from an actual score.]

 

Andrew

 

== snip

 

\version "2.19.50"

 

treble = {

  \clef treble

  \time 1/4

 

  c'4

  <g' bes'>16 <fis' bes'>16. <b' dis''>16

  <fis' g'>32

  c'4

}

 

bass = {

  \clef treble

  \time 1/4

 

  c'4

 

  \override Beam.positions = #'(5 . 5)

  \grace {

    \set tieWaitForNote = ##t

    b8[ _~ c' _~ d' ^~ ees' ^~

    \change Staff = treble \stemDown

    g']

    \change Staff = bass \stemUp

  }

  \once \override Beam.positions = #'(4 . 4)

 

  <b c' d' ees'>8..[

  \grace {

    \set tieWaitForNote = ##t

    a8[ _~ c' _~ des' _~ e' ^~

    \change Staff = treble \stemDown

    fis']

    \change Staff = bass \stemUp

  }

  <a c' des' e'>32] |

 

  c'4

}

 

\score {

 

  \new PianoStaff

  <<

    \new Staff = "treble" \treble

    \new Staff = "bass" \bass

  >>

 

  \layout {

    \context {

      \Score

      \accidentalStyle Score.dodecaphonic

    }

  }

}

== snip

Have a look in the IR at the grob SpacingSpanner. It's properties control all the optical spacing functionality. You can turn off/on the optical properties whenever you want.

HTH,

Abraham