Re: Unexpected placement of accidental

[Ahanu Banerjee]

Thanks for the clarification. I went back to Gould and indeed found a reference to octave accidentals (page 90). It seems to be more a suggestion than a rule. (I don't have other engraving texts on hand, but as a cellist, the spacing struck me as jarring. Perhaps it is useful for keyboardists?) 

The source material I am copying keeps the C-natural accidental closer to the stem, like the second chord from my example, and I have seen other hand-engraved scores do this as well, for the sake of prioritizing horizontal space. 

If I wanted to override the position of this single accidental, how might I do so? 

Cheers, 

-Ahanu 

On Thu, Jan 5, 2023, 03:46 Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> wrote:

Le 05/01/2023 à 07:26, Ahanu Banerjee a écrit :
> Hello,
>
> Please see the example below. I tried running it in 2.22 and 2.23 as
> well, and got the same result. Am I missing an obvious reason that the
> c-natural accidental is placed so far to the left?
>
> \version "2.24.0"
> \language "english"
> \relative {
>   \clef bass
>   \key a \major
>   % unexpected placement of "c-natural" accidental
>   <f, c' a' f'> s4*3
>   % expected placement shown here
>   \break <f c' a' c>
> }



According to classical engraving rules, accidentals for notes of the
same pitch at different octaves should be placed at the same horizontal
position. In the first case, there are accidentals for two F notes,
which must be aligned. If the C note's natural were placed as close
as possible to its note head, the two F naturals would need to be
placed farther, which would look bad for the higher F, and LilyPond
basically favors the F naturals because there are two of them.

The same effect is at play in the second example: the C notes
get the priority for being placed closer to the note heads because
there are two of them.

Best,
Jean