On 7/6/06, Juergen Reuter <address@hidden> wrote:
> please note that \partial or \upbeat, whatever you call it, has
> musicologically a special meaning: the first, incomplete bar, and the last
> bar of a piece or of a major section of a piece (typically the bar before
> the next "||" bar glyph) should sum up to a complete bar.
>
> For example, if a song with 4/4 meter starts with "\partial 4 f4", the
> last bar should, by convention, have a total length of 3 quarter notes.
> Having said that, you never should use "\partial" or "\upbeat" somewhere
> within a piece. If lily nevertheless accepts it within a piece without
> issuing an error or warning, I consider this a bug.
I often use partials to allow line breaks in the middle of some bars :
breakThreeFour = { \partial 2. s2. \bar "" \break \partial 4 s4 }
It makes more readable music, especially when there are multiple verses.
Mathieu