song problems

[David Biddiscombe]

I am revising some of a set of songs with piano accompaniment, which I
originally printed using an earlier version (2.4.6 I think) of LilyPond.
Most of these songs are for solo or unison singing, with the uppermost
notes of the piano accompaniment the same as those to be sung. The two
attached files, song.ly and song.pdf, represent the first system of one
of the songs and illustrate some of a few problems that I've had.


O    In the Bible-reference title I want a long dash, without spaces,
between '3' and '14'. I think this should be produced by \char #2014,
but that gives a different symbol. (Similarly, in the previous LilyPond
version, \char #169 didn't produce the copyright symbol but as it does
give that symbol in 2.12.2 it was evidently a bug in 2.4.6, so is the
failure of \char #2014 likewise a bug?)


O    Sorry, but my music-reading friends and I think the default-option
bar lines are ugly--we've never seen any so fat! The double bar lines,
of all types, are particularly messy, with hardly any white space
between the two lines. In the earlier version the bar lines were nice
and crisp. I've therefore reduced the thickness as much as I could,
using \override Staff.Barline #'hair-thickness = #0 (have I used it
correctly?), but they are still not as clean as before (especially the
double ones, which still have too little white space between the lines).
Also, at the reduced thickness every bar line has an unwanted dot
attached to it at the level of the lyrics baseline, which can be
confusing as it looks like a full stop in the lyrics).


O    Whether at the default bar-line thickness or at reduced thickness,
when double bar lines with repeat dots are specified (try altering \bar
“||” to \bar “|:” in line 28) the repeat dots are additionally produced
just below the lyrics level. This looks odd--is it intentional?


O    I would prefer to input the top line (number, Bible reference,
copyright notice, composer) as a header, rather than as a complicated
markup to a musical note, but haven't succeeded; could you show me the
header input to produce these in the same layout?


O    In bar 3 I think the head of the note  e  would preferably be on
the left side of the stem; could that be done, and how?


I'll be very grateful for your advice (including any criticisms of my
input). 



David.

song.ly
Description: Text Data

song.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document