Widening excessively tight horizontal spacing

[James Harkins]

Hi,

Is it possible to manipulate the horizontal spacing settings differently for 
different sections of a piece?

The situation: This score is currently for sheng solo. (Eventually I might add 
some graphic representations of the electronic parts, but they are 
indeterminate and I haven't figured out how to notate them yet.) Most of it 
looks fine, except for a section in the middle with a lot of 16th notes. That 
section appears too tightly spaced for my taste. So I would like to adjust the 
spacing only for that section. (Other sections look great as they are.)

I tried overriding Score.SpacingSpanner #'base-shortest-duration, using smaller 
note values, but it made no difference in the output. I put the override at the 
beginning of one of the music variables for that section.

Part of my reason for wanting to do this is that the score fits on six pages 
except for one staff system. I suspect one reason why there is so little music 
on the seventh page is that lilypond (maybe?) is trying aggressively to fit 
everything on six pages, over-compressing the notation in some places, but it 
still isn't enough. So I figured, one way to get a more reasonable seventh page 
would be to loosen the notation horizontally a bit. (I'll also open up 
system-system-spacing #'padding in the \paper block.)

Actually, at high-resolution, the tight spacing doesn't look *bad* exactly, but 
there are a lot of repeated notes and chords and I worry that if it's too 
compact, it may be too easy to lose your place while reading.

Advice welcome -- thanks --
hjh

PS I just want to commend the list again for the really excellent help that's 
offered here. The last section of the piece that I entered into LP is mostly 
cadenza material, and I got the notes and barlines in place in less than an 
hour, thanks to the \cadenzaToMusic function that someone (David?) gave me a 
few months ago. So efficient... you folks are great, and the tool is too!


--
James Harkins /// dewdrop world
address@hidden
http://www.dewdrop-world.net

"Come said the Muse,
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Sing me the universal."  -- Whitman

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