Re: Horizontal spacing - choir

[Simon Albrecht]

Hello,

On 14.02.2016 12:58, Carl-Henrik Buschmann wrote:
> I need advice on how to best typeset my SATB score. The problem 
> revolves around horizontal spacing.
>
> http://lilybin.com/15a0y9/2
>
> I feel it is a bit cramped and the breaks do not flow naturally.

I don’t think it’s cramped – well, I like ‘cramped’ old Peters editions, 
so that may be anachronistic and personal taste.

> What can i do to improve?

Choose a narrower text font – I like and often use Alegreya from 
fontsquirrel.org. I’d not advise using a smaller text font, since it 
gives an ill proportion between text and music size. However I find it 
perfectly alright to use a fontsize of 16 for choral scores. It will 
remain well legible.

What’s more, (well-made) choral scores _always_ print dynamics above the 
staff to not have them on the same side like the lyrics. There’s a 
number of cases in your example where I’d also move slurs and ties, 
maybe even scripts above the staff. But that’s a matter of style as well.

And I’d suggest to always use proper lyric hyphens, since the misaligned 
syllables at the end of bars 19 and 39 are confusing. You can avoid 
creating a melisma with the slur by either removing slurMelismaBusy from 
melismaBusyProperties or using phrasing slurs { \( \) }.

HTH, Simon