Re: Reducing staff numbers in LilyPond

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Ken,

> I honestly did not expect this kind of response, and I'm getting it from 
> multiple people.
> I asked a technical question and got a whole bunch of "answers" saying I'm 
> stupid to try to achieve that effect.

A large number of people on this list are also composers, arrangers, 
performers, etc. For better or (as in this case) worse, sometimes it is assumed 
that the OP doesn’t realize that a given musical/compositional/notational 
choice isn't standard convention, or has drawbacks that become obvious only in 
rehearsal, etc. — and in those cases, the people on the list try to help the OP 
in ways the OP didn’t ask for help. Often it works out well; other times, it 
doesn't. I wouldn't take it personally, nor as a characteristic of every 
interaction on the list.

> Except for Kieren hinting that it will probably be difficult, there has been 
> *zero* actual discussion about the technical aspects of it.

"Difficult" might not be the exact word I would distiill it down to… But it's 
also not necessarily trivial, especially if you're doing a lot of switching 
back and forth between stave setups in the same score. And the fundamental 
decisions that you make at the beginning of the process — how many voices the 
base code is written in, how much you use \partcombine versus other mechanisms, 
the exact arrangement of staves and other contexts, and so forth — can 
determine how your whole engraving journey goes on that particular piece. 
Outside of the programmers who have tinkered with the codebase related to 
divisi (including \partcombine), I may be the person who has done the most 
playing around with various setups… and I still can't say with 100% certainty 
what the "best practice" is. Otherwise, I would have given you a minimal 
working example that you could use to start your journey.

> If LilyPond or its community isn't friendly to people who want to experiment 
> with notation, I guess I'm finding that out pretty quickly.

Lilypond has limitations, like any application. So does the community. But I 
think you'll find, if you’re willing to overlook a few stumbles (both technical 
and interpersonal), that both Lilypond and the community are very friendly to 
people who want to experiment with notation.

Hope this helps!
Kieren.
________________________________

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