Re: rests in polyphonic music - 'stems down, rests up'

[Keith E OHara]

On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:01:03 -0700, <address@hidden> wrote:

> > > > > > "K" == Keith E OHara writes:
>     K> It is less clear if the use of Stem 'direction to place rests, in
>     K> the notes-plus-rests case, was intentional.
> Shouldn't the rests by default be placed where the voice goes in the
> column - odds up, evens down - regardless of stem-direction?

When there is a difference between the stem direction and the order of the 
voice, {\voiceOne \stemDown ...} then yes, it seems that Lilypond should place 
the rests according to the \voiceOne instruction.   I do not know if it is 
practical to change the behavior, but if you send a short example and desired 
behavior as a bug report, it can be fixed if practical the next time somebody 
revises that part of the program.

>     K> and since rest-collision.cc insists on asking your rests what is
>     K> their Stem direction, and since un-pitched rests in a stemNeutral
>     K> voice answer based on neutral-direction :
> I hadn't noticed this clause about un-pitched rests in stemNeutral
> voices.  Is their behaviour vs. 'neutral-direction documented anywhere?
I should have explained how I determined this.  I found the brief description 
of 'neutral-direction in the manual, and discovered the rest by experiment.  
(Which is fine with me, because experiment is faster than reading and 
understanding English for these detailed points.)