Re: parts sharing a staff

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Shevek,

> I often run into situations where two parts share a staff some
> of the time and have individual staffs the rest of the time.

This is quite common. (I have scores where up to 8 different parts will share 
between 1 and 8 staves, depending on the situation.)

> The way I handle it is like this [...]
> I thought this might just be of interest to others who deal with a similar 
> scenario.

That's very interesting! Right now I'm putting together a comparative analysis 
of the different methods of coding shared/split staves; this is not one I had 
previously seen or considered. As it relies on the partcombiner — which is both 
feature-poor and limited to two voices — it has some drawbacks; but there are 
also some benefits to the approach. Thanks for sharing it!

> Are you using a similar technique, or do you have a better approach?

"Better" is a matter of opinion… I know of three other primary ways of 
approaching it — each has its pros and cons.

> Second, this strategy leads to the necessity of manually writing \set
> Staff.shortInstrumentName = "1" whenever the second staff is visible, and
> back again to \column { "1" "2" } whenever the second staff is hidden. Since
> that depends on system breaking, which changes as I compose, getting the
> correct labels in the left margin is a continual source of tedious manual 
> bugfixing.

1. Other mechanisms would allow you to set the instrument name once and never 
adjust it. (But the tradeoffs might not be worth that modest gain.)

2. Speaking from a depth of experience, I might recommend not worrying about 
margin labels while composing… I find the mode-switching keeps me from 
harnessing really good composition focus/flow.

> What I'd really like is to be able to write some function or engraver that […]

Well, that is a separate — and very compelling — kettle of fish. For quite some 
time, I've been thinking about (and asking/posting about, and offering to 
sponsor, etc.) a staff-labelling engraver which would determine the name of the 
performer(s) who were represented by that staff, using the partcombiner or not.

> How feasible would such a project be?

I don't see why it couldn't be done fairly easily using a Scheme engraver.

> If it is feasible, how could I begin to approach it?

That's a different story… My Scheme-fu is weak (though I'm working my way 
through some of the learning curve right now). Hopefully someone else can help.

Cheers,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden