Re: Lilypond 2.19.82 with multiple voices seems to fail

[Andrew Bernard]

Hello Dave,

We keep seeing this a lot on the various lilypond lists. I don't think
anybody really knows why, but having lots of voices coming and going like
you have seems to throw errors with the compiler under poorly defined
conditions.

With the politest respect, can I say this? You are not the only one that
writes like this. While is is legal, and parses, and works to a certain
extent, it seems to me that people have got hold of the wrong end of the
stick. Basically one would normally write a set of continuous voices for
the piece, not one per bar. I can't fathom where that idea came from, but
it seems to be a recurring meme. The best advice is to write in  the
commonly accepted way. I write massively complex piano music and using the
normal lilypond way of multiple long running voices, several per hand for
piano, works fine for scores well over 200 pages long.

So, yes, I think it's a bug, but because it is a stilted usage for which
there is a perfectly good solution - write more normal code - it's unlikely
to get fixed, as it is very elusive. As others say, it's hard to establish
just exactly what pushes it over the edge.

Another comment is that this appears to be perfectly normal, and indeed
simplistic, piano music - I cant see any musical reason for what you are
doing.

This answer is not meant to offend you. But it's funny how this style of
writing keeps popping up. Perhaps there is something in the NR that gives
people the wrong impression when reading about multiple voices, maybe?

You won't find bug reports about this, but if you search the user archives
you will find this comes up a lot.

Andrew