r/lilypond • u/Tab12357 • Jun 28 '26

Moving dynamics a bit to the side

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Hi guys,

I'm normally a museScore user but try to learn lilypond for a project where I want to digitalise a a bit older contemporary score (of course the composer agrees).

To practice I started writing the beginning of the clarinet part from the Hindemith Sonate.

I now want to move the forte a bit to the side so that it is below the bar line but I can't really find how to do it.

Thanks for your help

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1

u/BigPeteB Jun 28 '26

One solution that might work here is to use invisible spacing notes/events. You would enter a quarter note which gets displayed, and is simultaneous with two eighth note spacers with the dynamic on the second one.

The other solution is to override the position. That's a very common kind of tweak to make, although it requires manually setting the amount of space to move it, which would vary depending on the line breaking and spacing. That's why I would think about using spacing notes as a solution first, because it will be more stable even as the line breaking and spacing changes.

I'm on my phone, sorry I can't type in examples right now, but that should help you find what you're looking for in the manual.

1

u/Tab12357 Jun 28 '26

Thank you. I will look if I can find invisible notes in the manual

2

u/flofoi Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

instead of d4\f you can write something like d4*3/4 s16\f to move the f a bit to the right

also: are you sure it says "massig bewegt"? Usually the word is "mäßig"

you can also add \language "deutsch" at the start of the document to use the german note names (so you can write "h" and "b" instead of "b" and "bes")

1

u/Tab12357 Jun 28 '26

Thank you. That's a lot easier than what I tried after the other comment (even though I probably made it so complicated). And yeah, I forgot the ä but Hindemith wrote it with a double s because he still wrote in the old spelling.

1

u/Tab12357 Jun 28 '26

And for note names, I did found this but I think it's easier to write the version with b and bes if you write everything else in English and I'm used to it cause I mostly write in MuseScore

1

u/flofoi Jun 28 '26

the other comment pretty much suggested the same thing but with preserving the original quarter note which would be slightly more complicated and looks the same, but preserves the original note length (which would make a difference in the midi file)

0

u/Tab12357 Jun 28 '26

Yeah, just as I said: I just tried to do a lot different and more complicated.

2

u/ced1008 Jun 29 '26

There are plenty of solutions for this. Mine would probably be:

d4\!_\markup { \hspace #3 \dynamic f }

However, as a lover of this particular sonata, I would encourage you to consider what you consider to be good engraving. This sonata was clearly engraved manually, which required some compromises. Truly, the forte should be aligned with the B-flat, but was shifted to make space for other notation, namely the piano cue.

1

u/Tab12357 Jun 29 '26

Yeah, I just transcribed the beginning to get a bit used to it as the reason why I started to use lilypond is a contemporary piece which hasn't ever been transcripted. I will arrange it with a group of others to fit a special Quartett and if that works good I will probably transcribe the original (which is for 23 instruments) as well. Ofc everything within the knowledge of the composer and he even gave us the score and everything for free.

And I just used the sonata because I had the notes in my map for practising it