I have recently started writing music notation with LilyPond. I find it convenient to split songs into different parts such as prelude, intro, interlude etc. So I have:
%prelude.ly
\new StaffGroup <<
\override StaffGroup.SystemStartBracket.stencil = ##f
\new Staff \with {
instrumentName = "Piano"
shortInstrumentName = "Pno"
} \new Voice \relative c'' {
c d e f
}
>>
and
%intro.ly
\new StaffGroup <<
\override StaffGroup.SystemStartBracket.stencil = ##f
\new Staff \with {
instrumentName = "Piano"
shortInstrumentName = "Pno"
} \new Voice \relative c'' {
g a b c
}
>>
Then I combine everything like so:
<<
\chords {
c,2 g,2 c,2 f,2 g,2 f,2 g,2 c,2
}
{
\include "prelude.ly"
\include "intro.ly"
}
>>
This method works quite well for large scores. Except I get line breaks at StaffGroup
boundaries as shown below:
Questions:
- Does an average musician find these breaks annoying or are they quite common?
- How can I avoid these breaks? Would be nice to get rid of the staff symbols at the boundaries as well.
- Are there better ways of organising large scores?
Update: Answers below have suggested avoiding multiple staffgroups. But if possible I would prefer to have a new staffgroup for each part of score. This allows me the felxibility to add more instruments in parallel to a particular part without affecting anything else.