lilypond - make it start counting from a partial opening measure

Question

We have noticed that when a part starts with a partial measure, LilyPond will consider the first measure to be the following one. Is there an easy way to tell LilyPond to start counting from the partial measure?

Adding ss to complete the measure is not good enough because they take up space. We found that adding \set Score.currentBarNumber = #2 at the start will get the bar numbers how we want, but this looks counterintuitive (because who starts counting on 2, right?). Is there an easier way to do this?

In case you are wondering, we are working on: https://github.com/eantoranz/bwv/blob/main/BWV%201004%20Violin%20Partita%20II%20D%20minor/5-ciaccona.ly

Answer 1

I suppose adding a quarter note rest on 1 would be more readable. Anyway, instead of using \partial 2 you can also directly change the measure length by doing

\set Timing.measureLength = #(ly:make-moment 1/2)

before the music and

\unset Timing.measureLength

after the partial measure.

Answer 2

Problem: wrong bar numbers when using partial such as in

\partial 2
\firstMeasure
\remainingMeasures

Fix 1: partial with current bar number = 2

\partial 2
\set Score.currentBarNumber = #2
\firstMeasure
\remainingMeasures

Fix 2: start with rest

s4
\firstMeasure
\remainingMeasures

Fix 3: start with rest, tweak width

\newSpacingSection
\override Score.SpacingSpanner.spacing-increment = #6.5
\override Score.SpacingSpanner.shortest-duration-space = #1
s4
\newSpacingSection
\revert Score.SpacingSpanner.spacing-increment
\revert Score.SpacingSpanner.shortest-duration-space
\firstMeasure
\remainingMeasures

Fix 4: set first measure length to 2/4 (thanks to Lazy)

\set Timing.measureLength = #(ly:make-moment 1/2)
\firstMeasure
\unset Timing.measureLength
\override Staff.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\time 3/4
\remainingMeasures

source code : wrong bar numbering after partial demo