Re: invisibly short ties in multiple voices

[Knute Snortum]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 11:03 AM Jim Cline <jcline@physics.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
> I am frequently getting ties that are so short as to be invisible.  This
> was discussed in a previous thread, and I was happily using the solution
> given by
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2015-02/msg00069.html,
> which is to insert \once \override Score.NoteColumn.X-offset = 1.5 between
> the tied notes, forcing the tie mark to become longer.  However I find it
> is not working when I have multiple voices, as in the following example.
> It works as expected in the lower staff, but not the upper staff.  Somehow
> the presence of the second voice seems to be canceling out the added
> horizontal space.  If I replace the music in the second voice by a
> complete measure of silence (s2.) then the tie gets lengthened as desired.
>
> (Incidentally, \stemDown is being ignored in the lower staff, I don't
> understand why).
>
> \version "2.20.0"
>
> bspace = {\once \override Score.NoteColumn.X-offset = 1.5}
>
> upper = \relative c'' {
>    \clef treble
>    <<{\stemDown \grace{d16_~}\bspace d4 e fis}\\{\stemUp  f16 e f8 s2}>>
> }
>
> lower =
>    \relative c {
>     \time 3/4
>    \clef bass
>   \stemDown\grace{ d'16_~}\bspace d4 e fis
> }
>
> \score {
>    \new PianoStaff <<
>      \new Staff = "upper" \upper
>      \new Staff = "lower" \lower
>    >>
> }

I have a fix for you, although a) I don't know why it works and yours
doesn't, and b) there may be a better way to do it.

Changing the \once \override to a \tweak and adding it to all the
voices seems to fix the note column problem.  The stem down problem
may have been a bug, because it works in version 2.22.2.

%%%
\version "2.20.0"
% \version "2.22" takes care of the \stemDown problem

% \tweak takes care of the NoteColumn issue
bspace = \tweak NoteColumn.X-offset 1.5 \etc
upper = \relative c'' {
   \clef treble
   <<{\stemDown \grace{d16_~}\bspace d4 e fis}\\{\stemUp \bspace f16 e f8 s2}>>
}

lower =
   \relative c {
    \time 3/4
   \clef bass
  \stemDown\grace{ d'16_~}\bspace d4 e fis
}

\score {
   \new PianoStaff <<
     \new Staff = "upper" \upper
     \new Staff = "lower" \lower
   >>
}
%%%

--
Knute Snortum