In a printed score book, the first 4 bars of a score establish a pedalling pattern and the pedal line then ends with "simile" to not overcrowd the score with all the same pedal pattern.
Later in the piece a pedal line just starts at the end of a bar with a flat line and ends the same way some bars later mid-bar. This is because the author wants to show how the pedalling is different for one or two bars.
(Source: Battlestar Galactica piano solo song book, page 22)
Working with Lilypond, I was able to reproduce the ending style of that pedal line by changing the second parameter (right heigt) in the pedal engravers edge-heigt
property to 0. But it won't work at the left side of the line. Here's a simple example:
\score{
\relative c'
{
\set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'bracket
\once \override Staff.PianoPedalBracket.edge-height = #'(0 . 1)
c4 d e f \sustainOn
g1 \sustainOff \sustainOn
a \sustainOff \sustainOn
\once \override Staff.PianoPedalBracket.edge-height = #'(1 . 0)
g4 \sustainOff \sustainOn f \sustainOff e d
c1
}
\layout{}
}
Lilybin: http://lilybin.com/4fwd93/1
Result:
When I put the first \sustainOn
behind the c4
- the first note in the bar - then the line starts flat but I don't like it that long. Sure, I can shorten it with the shorten-pair
property but the number required to shorten the line to my liking seems to depend on the current bar length. There is another pedal line like this in the piece and the number to short those occurences is way different.
Q: How can I achieve the start of the pedal line as depicted in my picture?