Re: How do you insert measures into scores with many parts?

[William Rehwinkel]

Dear David,

I don't know of any command or script that adds an extra bar before 
measure 45 or something like that, so it's something that you will have 
to do manually.

I think the things that will help the most for this are dutifully 
placing bar checks in your file (to help when you're scanning through 
your file looking for the right place to insert music) and splitting up 
each instrument into sections, like in this example:

% -------------------
\version "2.25.19"

first = \relative c' {
  c4 d e f |
}

second = \relative g' {
  g4 a b c |
}

third = \relative c'' {
  c4 b a g |
}

fourth = \relative g' {
  f4 e d c |
}

instrument = {
  \first
  \second
  \third
  \fourth
}

\score {
  \new Staff \instrument
}
% -------------------

I don't usually put each measure on a new line, but even then I seem to 
have minimal difficulty with quickly finding a specific measure, as long 
as the music is not too repetitive.

I've had to insert music in the middle of a file before, and when that 
happens I usually first pinpoint the exact place by adding `^"here"` to 
some note (to make sure the text appears on the right note). Then I just 
add the music and use a lot of trial and error to make sure it appears 
right (the bar-checks help me figure out if I made a mistake).

Thanks,
-William

On 9/27/24 14:52, David Bellows wrote:
> This is a question that came up on Reddit the other day and I didn't
> have an answer (it never happens to me).
>
> Say you are working on a score with multiple parts (like an orchestra)
> and you need to insert some measures into all the parts somewhere in
> the middle of the piece. Is there a way to organize things to minimize
> the hassle? Having to go to each file for each part and insert the
> measures would be a huge pain especially when compared to how
> relatively easy this is for other notation programs (so I'm told). And
> if you have to do this more than once then it's especially cumbersome.
>
> I know with some editors you can search and replace multiple files at
> once but this feels like it would mess up any internal organization
> with respect to bar numbers in the LilyPond file (in the comments).
>
> I understand that many people only use LilyPond for engraving so this
> isn't a problem for them, but there are those of us who compose
> directly in LilyPond and this could be a potential issue.
>
> I guess I'm wondering if there is a way of writing your LilyPond files
> in such a way to make this easier than just manually going through
> each part and changing them.

--
William Rehwinkel (any pronouns)
Juilliard School '26 - Oberlin Conservatory '24
william@williamrehwinkel.net - https://williamrehwinkel.net
PGP Public Key: https://ftp.williamrehwinkel.net/pubkey.txt

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