Re: spacing staff...can it be done?

[Mats Bengtsson]

On 2024-12-14 12:07, David Kastrup wrote:
> Dirck Nagy <dnagy@uwlax.edu> writes:
>
> > Hi all
> >
> > In the past, i have used a separate voice as a "spacing voice" to
> > control measures per line, horizontal space, etc.
> >
> > For example, if i wanted 4 measures in a line, i would write : "s1*4
> > \break. etc..." in the new voice.
> >
> > However if i do this to a monophonic staff, the default stem direction
> > changes to either "all up" or "all down", simply because there are now
> > two "voices" present.
> No, it doesn't.  Stem directions of voice contexts are not influenced by
> the stem directions in other voice contexts.
>
> It is an easy guess that you are using the << ... \\ .. >> shortcut for
> creating parallel voices with _explicitly_ different stem direction.
> Don't do that.  Introduce your ghost voice with
>
> << \context Voice { the normal voice ... } \new Voice { the ghost voice } >>
>
> And in particular _not_ using \\ .

You can simplify even further and put everything in one and the same Voice:

\version "2.24.0"

spacing = {
s1*4 \break
s1*4 \break
}

melody = \relative c' {
c4 c g' g |
a a g2 |
f4 f e e |
d d c2 |
g'4 g f f |
e e d2 |
g4 g f f |
e e d2 |
c4 c g' g |
a a g2 |
f4 f e e |
d d c2 |
}

\score{
  \new Staff \new Voice << \spacing \melody >>
}


To see why/how this works, the following extended example shows how you 
actually can input chords by including several lines of music into the 
same voice. This is somewhat limited compared to using \parallelMusic, 
since if you for example replace the spacing notes in the alto part 
below by the note "c", you will get duplicated note heads on the same stem.

\version "2.24.0"

spacing = {
s1*4 \break
s1*4 \break
}

melody = \relative c' {
c4 c g' g |
a a g2 |
f4 f e e |
d d c2 |
g'4 g f f |
e e d2 |
g4 g f f |
e e d2 |
c4 c g' g |
a a g2 |
f4 f e e |
d d c2 |
}

alto = \relative c' {
s4 s e e | % Try replacing by c4 c e e, to see what happens!
f f e2 |
d4 d c c |
c b s2 |
}

\score{
  \new Staff \new Voice << \spacing \melody \alto >>
}

   /Mats