Re: code suggestions

[James E. Bailey]

On 10.10.2008, at 09:03, David Stocker wrote:

> Hello everyone.
>
> Is there anyone on the list who wouldn't mind taking a look at some  
> code and offering general suggestions on writing input files? I've  
> now successfully typeset several piano scores and would like some  
> feedback from experienced users about the structure of my .ly files.  
> I'm still relatively new to LilyPond (but not to music typesetting).  
> As a study, I'm setting some of the preludes and fugues from Dover's  
> 1983 reprint of the Bach-Gesellschaft edition of Bach's /Well  
> Tempered Clavier/. In particular, I'm after suggestions for the  
> actual code structure and things I may do to make it simpler and  
> more elegant. I'm already aware of any typesetting/collision issues  
> in these draft copies and will consult the documentation (or user  
> forum) for resolutions to typesetting issues.
>
> Thanks in advance,

I'm not the most advanced user, but I would suggest putting the tempo  
marks (in future) in their own variable. For one, you can input the  
music all at once, as just music, and just throw the tempo marks in  
later. Also, if you use templates, it makes it easy to just replace  
the tempo mark in the template with whatever your current project  
requires.
Also, (and I'm realising this is probably one of the most confusing  
aspects of the documentation) the multi-voice structure <<{}\\{}>>  
automatically puts the first {} as \voiceOne and the second {} as  
\voiceTwo and even puts it back as \oneVoice once it's done. So, if  
you're going to use that structure to do polyphony, there's no need to  
specify the voices. You only need to do that if you use <<{\voiceOne} 
\new Voice {\voiceTwo}>>\oneVoice, in which case, all of that is  
necessary for the same multi-voice construct. The biggest advantages I  
find of "explicitly instatiating the voices" (which is what the second  
version does) is that you can have a slur or tie into or out of the  
multi-voice construct c4( <<{\voiceOne d4) \new Voice {\voiceTwo a4}>>  
\oneVoice, and that you can name the second voice \sopranoI = {c4  
<<{\voiceOne d4} \new Voice = "sopranoII {\voiceTwo a4}>>. Redundancy  
doesn't make your input file worse, but understanding the particulars  
of single-voice polyphony makes it easier to represent exactly what  
you want, and you may later need to use one construct or another.