Re: Tie chord between staves

[Andrew Bernard]

Hi John and a warm welcome to the world of lilypond.

This is a difficult question, as you see from the answers from Pierre and Urs. I was considering this matter for you. I spend my time setting scores by my colleague who is a foremost exponent of the so called New Complexity School (and therfore extremely complex!), and I encounter problems like this every day. Sometimes, the answer is to get the composer to write music properly! This is typical modern notation where logical voices get squashed into seemimgly single ones. I never liked it.

Since this appears to be a contemporary manuscript and not a text that you must set rigourously from a past composer, I would suggest the music can be rewritten so that the first 8 of the triplet at least can be in the bass – then the tie issue goes away and becomes straightforward. Then you can use cross staff techniques. Refer to the Notation Reference (or NR as it is called around here) for details.

Also, for the slur in the bass, use two voices and it will be easy. The treble line would benefit from two voices as well. Again, the NR has a lot of detail in how to set music in lilypond using voices. It’s very flexible.

Don’t be afraid as an engraver to ask a composer to reconsider their notation when it is difficult or impossible to set.

Andrew