Re: GrandStaff vertical distance

[Lukas-Fabian Moser]

Hi,

> In the meantime, I found another solution for this, but this doesn't appear
> to be the easiest way to do it! I used systemStartDelimiterHierarchy instead
> which doesn't add any space within a family group. Again, with the LilyPond
> exemple, this will give:
[...]
> I would be interested if someone find another way to do this... But at
> least, this seems to work!
I daresay this might be the best and even the semantically "correct" 
solution. Note that the brace connecting Violin 1 and Violin 2 does not 
yield an "instrument" that is used to being held together by a brace 
(like a piano), but is a mere notational convention. What we really want 
is, I think, 4-5 staves of strings with equal rights, the first two of 
which happen to be connected by an additional brace.

But I think your usage of systemStartDelimiterHierarchy is not yet 
optimal. It can be simplified to
\set StaffGroup.systemStartDelimiterHierarchy = #'((SystemStartBrace a b))

Also, I would not do this via \set, but in a \with block. If you then 
also put this into a variable, it gets very easy to use:

\version "2.19.80"

firstTwoBraced = \with {
  systemStartDelimiterHierarchy = #'((SystemStartBrace a a))
}

\new StaffGroup \with \firstTwoBraced <<
  \new Staff = "Staff_violinI" \with { instrumentName = #"Violin I" } { a }
  \new Staff = "Staff_violinII" \with { instrumentName = #"Violin II" } 
{ a }
  \new Staff = "Staff_viola" \with { instrumentName = #"Viola" } { a }
  \new Staff = "Staff_cello" \with { instrumentName = #"Cello" } { a }
  \new Staff = "Staff_bass" \with { instrumentName = #"Double Bass" } { a }
>>

With a little bit of scheme, it should even be easy to make this into a 
function accepting to parameters, indicating that k staves starting with 
the n'th staff should be braced.

Best
Lukas