Dynamics context

[Martín Rincón Botero]

Hello,

I discovered today that my main complain about Lilypond, namely, its default positioning of dynamics, is corrected by using a Dynamics context. After reading Gilberto’s suggestion in an old thread I have complemented Lilypond’s behavior with 

\layout { 
  \context { 
    \Dynamics 
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.nonstaff-relatedstaff-spacing.basic-distance = #0
  } 
} 

The result of this combination, which reminds me of the excellent Sibelius’ magnetic layout, is exactly what I want for all dynamics of all instruments in a score and in parts (no piano). I wanted to ask if using the Dynamics context is the simplest way available in Lilypond for achieving this kind of vertically aligned dynamics. The huge drawback of the Dynamics context is that it disrupts the syntax, since dynamics can’t be used next to the first note they’re attached to, but instead they need a separate variable, reducing readability of the actual “music”. I tried as suggested somewhere else to make Lilypond import the music variable in the \new Dynamic while removing the dynamics engraver from the “music”. This is not optimal since a lot of stuff (articulations, text, etc.) are also “imported” by the \new Dynamic context and thus duplicated in print. Is there any way of achieving this by means of overrides or similar that can be applied globally, without having to resort to having to manually define variables full of spacers?

Best regards, 

Martín.

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www.martinrinconbotero.com