Lilypond question: How do I modify note spacing in a melisma
  • FrPeter
    Posts: 1
    Greetings,

    I need to typeset gregorian chant in modern notation for pew cards that I'm making for my parish. I've chosen to use Lilypond for this and I'm really struggling to get the note spacing right. The default behaviour for Lilypond seems to be to place the first note of a melisma at the beginning of a syllable, and then the remaining notes after the syllable, which is less than ideal for ease of reading.

    My question is this: How can I modify the note spacing in Lilypond so that the notes of a melisma are spaced more tightly? I'd like the output to look less like this:
    image
    And more like this:
    image

    Any help in this would be greatly appreciated!

    Many thanks,
    Fr. Peter
    actual_output.png
    376 x 172 - 23K
    desired_output.png
    357 x 141 - 25K
    lilypond_code.ly.txt
    1K
  • dboothe
    Posts: 31
    You may not be able to get it exactly like your example, but you can get a lot closer by using differing note values.

    For example, on the word "forth," try:

    g32( c4)

    or even

    g64( c4)

    You'll probably want to experiment with each melisma to get the look right. They won't necessarily be all done with the same values.

    Lilypond, being designed for metered music, needs some workarounds for chant which would include "gregorian.ly. " But with a little experimentation, you can get it to look decent.

    Hope this helps.

    dB

    Edit:
    Format code snippets; changed some wording.
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