Thank you so much for your answer. I was talking about the dimensional width of a bar. The situation in my "fat" bar is complicated, because one singer in a recit enters while the other one is on her last note. So I had the problem of accommodating the lyrics and moving them around, so they are well aligned on the sheet. And because with LilyPond's standard behaviour there still was not enough space, I inserted a line break after the "fat" bar. That way I have forced LilyPond to only put two bars in the line instead of three. The result looks OK, but I hope there is a much more elegant way to achieve this.
Here is the code snippet (hope this is enough for evaluation): ... c4 ( h8.\trill ) c16 << { r8 \clef bass \tempo "Recitativo" \stemDown \autoBeamOff \once \override TextScript.padding = #1.7 g,8^\markup { "Basso" }_\markup \fontsize #1.5 { \halign #-0.9 "Auch in dem" } g e \break} \\ { \once \override TextScript.padding = #1.7 c''2_\markup \fontsize #1.5 { \halign #-0.7 "Stamm!" } } >> \appoggiatura d,,8 cis4 ... I also attach a screenshot. Thank you also for mentioning the \newSpacingSection command, which I did not know. I have looked in the documentation, but the example there is about a different time signature again. In my example it does not change, and I wonder how I can take advantage of the command. SpacingSpanner? uniform-stretching? But how exactly? For my LilyPond knowledge at the moment this goes too deep under the hood... Am Dienstag, dem 16.01.2024 um 09:50 -0800 schrieb Aaron Hill via LilyPond user discussion: > On 2024-01-16 8:06 am, Hajo Baess wrote: > > Hello LilyPond users, > > > > I wonder if there is a possibility to define a custom bar length, > > thus > > for once cancelling LilyPond's automatic insertion of bar lines. > > > > I have a complicated measure here with quite a bit of markup to > > accommodate in one bar. I have worked out a solution which is maybe > > good enough, but it contains lots of tweaks in order to squeeze > > everything into the automatically assigned bar length. > > > > If I could define my own bar lengths, I would get more space in the > > bar, so I hope at least. My search in the documentation did not > > yield a > > result for me, but maybe I did not look in the right places. > > > > Hopefully someone here can troubleshoot me. > > Any help is much appreciated. > > I suspect we are going to need more information as there are at least > two interpretations of "length" here. > > This is why we highly recommend including MWEs (minimum working > examples) with questions, as this gives us a common starting point > without having to make potentially derailing guesses. > > ---- > > Length interpretation one: Metrical length (i.e. number of beats in a > bar) > > If you need to momentarily step away from the defined time signature, > the easiest option I find is to use a cadenza--a section of music > that > is not bound by the time signature. Begin the section with > \cadenzaOn, > cram whatever notes you want, and then end the section with > \cadenzaOff > to resume the original time signature. > > NOTE: LilyPond will not attempt to subdivide a cadenza on its own for > the purposes of line breaking. You can of course provide hints using > \bar "" as needed. > > For more information, see: NR 1.2.3 - Displaying Rhythms; Unmetered > Music > https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.24/Documentation/notation/displaying-rhythms#unmetered-music > > ---- > > Length interpretation two: Dimensional width (i.e. physical space on > the > paper) > > LilyPond's spacing engine tries to keep things unified across the > music, > so notes should look consistently spaced throughout the piece. You > can > define a new "spacing section" within your score with the aptly named > \newSpacingSection command. Each use of this command will break up > the > larger score into chunks that the spacing engine will handle > independently. There are several context properties that affect note > spacing, and these can be adjusted within each spacing section as > desired. > > For your scenario of a measure that just needs to be wider than > everyone > else, you would at a minimum need to start a new spacing section > coming > into the measure and then start yet another section for the > subsequent > measure--a total of three sections: one before, one for the "fat" > measure, and one after. > > For more information, see: NR 4.5.2 - New Spacing Section > https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.24/Documentation/notation/new-spacing-section > > ---- > > If you are talking about something else entirely, please see about > providing a brief example of what you have tried. > > > -- Aaron Hill >