I was directed by America Luke to this forum site. I hope this is the correct place.
I have a score with a lot of triplets. It's awkward to write always \times 2/3 {c16 d e} \times 2/3 {d e f}.
Since the \times causes not only the duration scaling but also the bracket length you can't use
\times 2/3 {c16 d e d e f}.
How can this done more efficiently.
It's worth pointing out that as of LilyPond 2.17.11, you can write
\tuplet 3/2 8 {c16 d e d e f}
and get 3:2 tuplets in groups of duration 8 (in this case, two groups of three tuplets each). This is basically the same as temporarily overriding tupletSpannerDuration.
You have to specify the property tupletSpannerDuration to get several tuplets using only one \times command:
\set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 8)
\times 2/3 {c16 d e d e f }
See LilyPond Documentation for more on this.
I think that your problem isn't intrinsically with the triplets, but rather with controlling beams; one approach is to manually set the beams:
Running lilypond 2.16 on
{
\times 2/3 {c16^"Two 3-note phrases" d e } \times 2/3 { d e f } r4 r2
\times 2/3 { c16^"Manual Beaming" [d e] d [e f] } r4 r2
\set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 8)
\times 2/3 { c16^"Moment & Manual Beaming" [d e] d [e f] } r4 r2
}
yields this 
The square brackets in the lilypond file indicate the beams in the same manner as parentheses indicate slurs.
\times 4/6 instead, and lilypond will even try to infer the best beaming as available.
Commented
Nov 8, 2013 at 5:03
I think, there is no need to restrict the contents of one brace to 3 notes only, so for consecutive triplets, as in your example, a minor compression can be:
\times 2/3 {c16 d e d e f}
A better looking grouping:
\relative c' {
\override TupletBracket.bracket-visibility = #'if-no-beam
\times 2/3 { c16 c \set stemRightBeamCount = #1 c }
\times 2/3 { \set stemLeftBeamCount = #1 c c c }
}
yields this:
