RE: Head of merged half note getting filled

[Nick Payne]

> From: Jonathan Kulp [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Friday, 1 May 2009 12:43 PM
> To: Nick Payne
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Head of merged half note getting filled
> 
> Nick Payne wrote:
> > I've got a score where the heads of half and dotted half notes that are
> > merged with eighth notes are being incorrectly filled in. I've minimised
it
> > to the attached example. I've found that the problem is due to having
three
> > voices. If I remove the treble voice from my example, then the merged
note
> > in the middle and bass voices outputs correctly with an unfilled
notehead.
> >
> I'm not sure why it doesn't behave like you want, but you can force it
> to do so with this code before the offending note in the middle voice:
> 
>    \once \override NoteHead #'transparent = ##t
> 
Yes - I was just illustrating what seems to be to be a bug.

> You can also use much simpler \stemUp, \stemDown, and \stemNeutral
> commands to control direction of stems.

If I have one note each bar that requires a direction change, then it's
actually simpler to use the \once command, as \stemUp requires the
corresponding \stemDown or \stemNeutral after the note. I have a standard
file of shortcuts I include in every score that contains, inter alia:

onceSlurDown = \once \override Slur #'direction = #DOWN
onceSlurUp = \once \override Slur #'direction = #UP
onceTieDown = \once \override Tie #'direction = #DOWN
onceTieUp = \once \override Tie #'direction = #UP
onceStemDown = \once \override Stem #'direction = #DOWN
onceStemUp = \once \override Stem #'direction = #UP

and I use these shortcuts quite a lot.

Nick