I have just spent several hours trying to find the reason that
metronome marks were affecting the spacing of notes in certain parts of
my score. At last I have found the offending line.
I am using the "MarkLine" context from the LSR, because I want markings
to appear at the top of the score (even when the flute staves are not
shown) and above the violin I staff. The MarkLine is where the problem
arose, it seems.
The following example shows the problem.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.21.5"
\language "english"
\layout {
\context {
\name "MarkLine"
\type "Engraver_group"
\consists Metronome_mark_engraver
\override MetronomeMark.extra-spacing-width = #'(0.5 . 0)
}
\context {
\Score
\remove Metronome_mark_engraver
\accepts MarkLine
}
}
\score {
<<
\new MarkLine {
\time 3/4
\tempo "This causes a large gap between notes"
s2.
}
\new Staff { \relative {
\key bf \major
df''16f8 df16 ef f g a bf( a) f df |
} }
>>
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
I have removed any irrelevant lines from the definition of MarkLine.
The line that causes the problem is the override of
MetronomeMark.extra-spacing-width. If this is commented out, the score
formats as one would expect. I haven't yet discovered whether there
are any disadvantages to removing this line.
The default values of MetronomeMark.extra-spacing-width are '(+inf.0 .
-inf.0) Changing them to '(0.5 . 0) gives rise to the problem I am
getting, yet in the LSR example that problem doesn't seem to arise.
Clearly I'm failing to understand exactly what is happening here. Why
does my example go wrong, yet the LSR one doesn't?