Re: Polyphony

[Janek Warchoł]

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 7:49 PM, Mark Stephen Mrotek
<address@hidden> wrote:
> how to have the notation for the middle voice move from the
> treble staff to the bass staff and back (This to avoid ledger lines.) The
> online documentation (Notation Reference 2.2.1) provides instruction for all
> pitch notations in the treble moving to the bass. Directions to relevant
> portions of the manual would be greatly helpful and appreciated.

Hmm?
\change Staff = "insert-appropriate-staff-name-here"
should do just what you want - move the voice containing that
instruction to the staff you specified.  Have you tried it?
In other words, \change Staff doesn't move /all/ notes to another
staff - it moves the current voice context.  That's what's written
here
http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.17/Documentation/notation/common-notation-for-keyboards#changing-staff-manually

> The second is how to make a voice “silent” for several measures. In a
> completed coding of the same piece (Mutopiaproject.org), Davide Castellone
> using version 2.9.9 enters the code: s1 s1*5 s1 s1 s1. I have attempted this
> command in my code. It gets an error message.
>
> Does version 2.16.0 have a comparable command? Where is it discussed in the
> manual?

Spacer rests (notes with name 's', the ones you mentioned) should work
all right in 2.16.0.  Probably the error is somewhere else.  Please
try creating a minimal example
(http://www.lilypond.org/tiny-examples.html) and if it doesn't help
you find the problem, send the minimal example to us.

hope this helps,
Janek