Using only manual page breaks in a large file with many short scores

[Paul Morris]

Greetings all,  
I have a question about preventing automatic page breaks and only using manual 
page breaks. I'm working on a large file (72 pages) that has 1-3 separate 
fiddle tunes per page.  Each tune is in a separate file that I include in the 
main file like this:

% page 1
\include "TuneA.ly"
\include "TuneB.ly"
\pageBreak

% page 2
\include "TuneC.ly"
\include "TuneD.ly"
\include "TuneE.ly"
\pageBreak

Each tune file has its own \score block that contains the music (stored in 
variables) and the header info for each tune.

I only want page breaks where I manually put them in the main file, but 
LilyPond occasionally puts them in the middle of a tune when the vertical 
spacing gets tight on a given page.

I tried putting each page in a \bookpart[1] or \book block, but this doesn't 
work because of the variables in each tune file which apparently can't appear 
inside of these blocks.  For example, this won't work:

\bookpart {
  melodyA = { a b c d }
  \score { \new Staff \melodyA }
  \score { \new Staff { e f g } }
}

[1] http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/page-breaking


I tried to force only manual page breaks by overriding page-break-permission in 
the top-level layout block in the main file: 
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/explicit-breaks

But that didn't solve the problem.  I think it's because of interference with 
ragged-bottom = ##t   Here is a minimal example:

\version "2.18.0"
\paper {
  % ragged-bottom = ##t
}
\layout {
  \override NonMusicalPaperColumn.page-break-permission = ##f
}
music = \relative f' {
  c1 c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c
  c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c
}
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\pageBreak
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\pageBreak
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\score {  \music }
\pageBreak


If ragged-bottom = ##t is commented out the manual page breaks work as 
expected.  Well, except for the last one, where the 3rd page runs over onto a 
fourth (so that's an issue in itself).   With ragged-bottom = ##t there are 
only two scores per page until the last two pages where there are 3.5 scores 
and 0.5 scores.

I'm using ragged-bottom for pages that are not that full where I don't want the 
scores stretched vertically to fill the page, leaving too much space between 
each staff.  However, it seems you can't have ragged-bottom and force only 
manual page breaks at the same time?

Any advice or suggestions appreciated.  This is my first time working on this 
kind of thing.

-Paul