Re: Lyric line's vertical position is shifting from one staff system to the next.

[dfro]

Dear Harm,
You did it! You solved my problem, and have saved me from countless 
tweak-recompile-tweak-recompile cycles with the way I was doing things 
before. I can now set the vertical spacing of the chord/lyric lines in 
relation to a single-line staff and move on, as I wanted. I am grateful 
for the help you and others have given me on this issue.

I was experimenting with your solution, and I found a way to attach the 
fixed chord-staff-chord group to other 
Staffs/PianoStaffs/ChoirStaffs/StaffGroups, which retain their flexible 
vertical spacing, and also retain flexible system-system spacing. I can 
put the fixed-spacing staff group on top, anywhere in the middle, or on 
the bottom of a grouping of staves.

Below, I have added some code examples. The examples use ChordNames 
lines, but Lyrics lines work just as well. All of the fixed and flexible 
vertical spacing can be adjusted in the \Score, \Staff, \ChordNames, or 
\Lyics of \layout { \context ... }, and in \paper { ... }.

I noticed the following behaviors of the setting: \override 
NonMusicalPaperColumn.line-break-system-details = 
#'((alignment-distances . (1 2 3))). If you place this in \layout 
{\context { \Score ...}}, then LilyPond will go through the list of 
numbers in 'alignment-distances' creating fixed spacing between staves 
from the top down until the numbers run out, then LilyPond will return 
to the default or custom flexible vertical spacing settings for any 
staves left over. This allows me to attach the chord-staff-chord 
grouping on top of a staff, as in a leadsheet.

I wanted to see if I could get LilyPond to let me put the fixed 
chord-staff-chord group in the middle of or at the end of a group of 
Staffs/PianoStaffs/StaffGroups that have retained their flexible 
vertical spacing. I tried putting NULL in the list of numbers in 
'alignment-distances', and it worked! I think that any token that means 
nothing to LilyPond can be used. If LilyPond runs into a meaningless 
token/word, it will skip the fixed spacing for that staff-staff pair and 
move to the next number/token in the list and the next staff-staff 
spacing down the page. (I hope that I am using the terminology 
correctly.) I do not know if the developers intended this or if it is 
explained somewhere, but I like this behavior of 'alignment-distances' 
and I hope it remains in future versions of LilyPond!

This tweak/technique is very useful to me, since a chord-staf-chord, 
chord-lyric-lyric-lyric, chord-chord-chord, or any other grouping with 
fixed spacing can be added to a score that retains its flexible spacing 
on all of the other staves. You can also have a score that has a 
flexible-fixed-flexible-fixed setup, by setting 'alignment-distances' 
with the proper list of NULL-number-NULL-number tokens/variables that 
correspond to the staves in the score.

I do not think your solution, nor this way of using 
'alignment-distances' and NULL tokens, is readily apparent in the 
documentation. (Of course, I could be missing something.) Perhaps, this 
is another area where I could offer some patches to the documentation or 
some snippets. I may share this in a blog article, eventually.

I can now get back to work on my manuscript projects. Thank you!

Peace,
David Froseth

P.S. I tried LilyPond 2.19.81 and the code worked, but the 
superscripting in my custom chord symbols disappeared, so I am back to 
using 2.18.2 for now.


%EXAMPLE 1 START OF CODE
%1. Fixed chord-staff-chord above two flexible staves
\version "2.18.2"

chord-rhythms = \relative b' {
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
}

BirdBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
}

BasicBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
}

"melody1" = \relative c' {
      c'2 c c c c c c c c c \break
      c''2 c c c c c c c c c \break
}

"melody2" = \relative c {
      c1 f c c f \break
      c1 f c c f \break
}

\score {

      \new StaffGroup
      <<

            \new Staff = "chords"
            \with {
                  \omit Clef
                  \override StaffSymbol.line-count = #1
                  \override BarLine.bar-extent = #' (-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \override StaffSymbol.Y-extent = #'(-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \hideNotes
            }  \chord-rhythms
            \new ChordNames \with {
                  alignAboveContext = "chords"
            } \BirdBlues
            \new ChordNames \BasicBlues
            \new Staff = "rh"  \"melody1"
            \new Staff = "lh" \with {
                  \clef "bass" } \"melody2"
      >>

}

\layout {
      ragged-right = ##t
      indent = 0

      \context {
            \Score
            \override NonMusicalPaperColumn.line-break-system-details =
            #'((alignment-distances . (1 3.4)))
      }
      \context {
            \Staff
            \numericTimeSignature
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
      \context {
            \ChordNames
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = ##f
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
}

\paper {
      indent = 0
      system-system-spacing = #'((basic-distance . 0) (padding . 8))
}
%EXAMPLE 1 END OF CODE



%EXAMPLE 2 START OF CODE
%2. Fixed chord-staff-chord between two flexible staves
\version "2.18.2"

chord-rhythms = \relative b' {
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
}

BirdBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
}

BasicBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
}

"melody1" = \relative c' {
      c'2 c c c c c c c c c \break
      c,,2 c c c c c c c c c \break
}

"melody2" = \relative c {
      c1 f c c f \break
      c''1 f c c f \break
}

\score {

      \new StaffGroup
      <<

            \new Staff = "rh"  \"melody1"
            \new Staff = "chords"
            \with {
                  \omit Clef
                  \override StaffSymbol.line-count = #1
                  \override BarLine.bar-extent = #' (-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \override StaffSymbol.Y-extent = #'(-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \hideNotes
            }  \chord-rhythms
            \new ChordNames \with {
                  alignAboveContext = "chords"
            } \BirdBlues
            \new ChordNames \BasicBlues
            \new Staff = "lh" \with {
                  \clef "bass" } \"melody2"
      >>

}

\layout {
      ragged-right = ##t
      indent = 0

      \context {
            \Score
            \override NonMusicalPaperColumn.line-break-system-details =
            #'((alignment-distances . (NULL 1 3.4)))
      }
      \context {
            \Staff
            \numericTimeSignature
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
      \context {
            \ChordNames
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = ##f
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
}

\paper {
      indent = 0
      system-system-spacing = #'((basic-distance . 0) (padding . 8))
}
%EXAMPLE 2 END OF CODE



%EXAMPLE 3 START OF CODE
%3. Fixed chord-staff-chord below two flexible staves
\version "2.18.2"

chord-rhythms = \relative b' {
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
      b2 b b b b b b b b b \break
}

BirdBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
      c1:7 b2:min7.5- e:7 a:min7 d:7 g:min7 c:7 f1:7
}

BasicBlues = \chordmode {
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
      c1:7 f:7 c:7 c:7 f:7
}

"melody1" = \relative c' {
      c'2 c c c c c c c c c \break
      c2 c c c c c c c c c \break
}

"melody2" = \relative c {
      c1 f c c f \break
      c,,1 f c c f \break
}

\score {

      \new StaffGroup
      <<

            \new Staff = "rh"  \"melody1"
            \new Staff = "lh" \with {
                  \clef "bass" }  \"melody2"
            \new Staff = "chords"
            \with {
                  \omit Clef
                  \override StaffSymbol.line-count = #1
                  \override BarLine.bar-extent = #' (-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \override StaffSymbol.Y-extent = #'(-3.5 . 3.5)
                  \hideNotes
            }  \chord-rhythms
            \new ChordNames \with {
                  alignAboveContext = "chords"
            } \BirdBlues
            \new ChordNames \BasicBlues
      >>

}

\layout {
      ragged-right = ##t
      indent = 0

      \context {
            \Score
            \override NonMusicalPaperColumn.line-break-system-details =
            #'((alignment-distances . (NULL NULL 1 3.4)))
      }
      \context {
            \Staff
            \numericTimeSignature
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
      \context {
            \ChordNames
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = ##f
            \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
            #'((basic-distance . 0) (minimum-distance . 0) (padding . 
4) (stretchability . 0))
      }
}

\paper {
      indent = 0
      system-system-spacing = #'((basic-distance . 0) (padding . 8))
}
%EXAMPLE 3 END OF CODE