Lilypond: Putting left hand notes on treble clef - one more question

Question

Similar to my earlier question - How to put Left hand notes on the treble clef

But this still has me stumped -

This is what I am trying to achieve:

This is what I am getting:

My right hand is:

    \repeat volta 2 { 
      \time 4/4
      r4^"8. Cartwheels" c4 e4 g4| 
      \hideStaffSwitch
      \change Staff = "left"
      R1  
      \change Staff = "right"
      |  
      r4 c,4 e4 g4 | 
      s2 c,2 | R1 \bar "|."
    }

My left hand is:

    \repeat volta 2 { 
      \stemUp
      \showStaffSwitch
      c'4_5 r4 r2 
      \change Staff = "right"
      c''1_2
      \change Staff = "left"
      |  
      c,,4_5 r4 r2 
      \change Staff = "right"
      \stemDown
      c''2
      \change Staff = "left"
      r1 
      c,,1-5
    }

My questions are:

1. How can we get those nicely curved-dashed staff change lines in lilypond?

2. How can the staff change be shown to begin immediately after the c4 note on the bass clef in measure one - instead of the r2? If I do the switch starting after the c4 - the c1 full note comes on to the treble clef right in the middle of measure 1!

3. How should the second measure be written - Where should the rest in the second measure be placed? In the left hand part after switching back having played the c1 OR do a staff switch in the right hand part->go to the bass clef and put in an R1 and switch back to the right hand staff ... I tried the former, but it did not look right and I got some warnings, I tried the latter and now it looks OK as in the picture - but it does not feel OK :-) (why should the right hand do a rest on the bass clef)

4. Why are we getting an extra measure at the end of the left hand part?

Answer 1

I don't know how to make the staff-switch voice follower line to be curves, but I think I can answer some of your other questions:

• The rest in the second measure should stay in the treble clef, but go down a bit to accommodate the high note of the left-hand voice. This can be achieved by getting rid of the staff switches in the right hand and placing \once\voiceTwo before this rest instead. Similarly, the s2 in the fourth bar of the right-hand should be a visible rest r2 with a \once\voiceTwo before it, to move it down a little.

• The r1 in the second last bar of the left-hand should be an r2, this is causing the extra half bar at the end.

• To make the staff-switch line dashed, use:
  \override VoiceFollower #'style = #'dashed-line

You should get something like this:

As mentioned, I am not sure how to make the staff-switch lines to be curves, but if you can figure out how to get curves, it should prevent the line from colliding with the rest in the second bar.

I don't really understand your question 2.
You could just move the staff switch to before the rests in the first bar of the left-hand (so the rest go into up the top of the treble clef), this doesn't look great. But having the staff-switch line before the rests just seems confusing — the rests belong to the voice.

Alternative Approach:

For this particular piece of music, I think it is worth considering an interpretation that there is only one voice. This voice crosses staves and is played by both hands.

Thinking about the music this way warrants the use of \autoChange (or \autochange if you are using a version older that 2.21). This makes the score much cleaner; eliminating the need for rests. The coding is much simpler too, and the dashed lines are easy to implement with a phrasing slur.

\new PianoStaff 
    <<
        \new Staff = "up" {
            \clef "treble"
        }       
        \new Staff = "down" {
            \clef "bass"
            \phrasingSlurDashed 
            \autoChange b {
                \repeat volta 2 {
                    c4\(_5 c'-1 e'-3 g'-5 |
                    c''1\)_2^\markup{\italic"L.H."} |
                    c4\( c' e' g' |
                    c''2\)^\markup{\italic"L.H."} c' |
                    c1 |
                }
            }
        }
    >>

Answer 2

The extra measure come from you specifying r1 in the left hand after the second cross staff c. You have an extra half note everything starting at this point is shifted.

To get the cross-staff c and the rest you can simply create a new Voice in the left hand containing the rest.

For the curved lines I’d suggest using tweaked Phrasing slurs, something like

#(define right-arrow-and-lh-over-to-slur
   (grob-transformer 'stencil (lambda (grob orig)
     (let* ((cpts (ly:grob-property grob 'control-points))
            (middle-left-coord (cadr cpts))
            (middle-right-coord (caddr cpts))
            (right-coord (cadddr cpts))
            (raw-arrow (grob-interpret-markup grob (markup #:arrow-head Y DOWN #t)))
            (arr-ext (ly:stencil-extent raw-arrow Y))
            (arr-neg-height (- (car arr-ext) (cdr arr-ext)))
            (corrected-arrow (ly:stencil-translate-axis raw-arrow arr-neg-height Y))
            (arrow (ly:stencil-translate corrected-arrow right-coord))
            (lh-raw (grob-interpret-markup grob (markup #:fontsize -2 #:italic "L.H. over")))
            (lh-cent (ly:stencil-aligned-to (ly:stencil-aligned-to lh-raw X CENTER) Y DOWN))
            (middle-coord (cons (/ (+ (car middle-left-coord) (car middle-right-coord)) 2) (/ (+ (cdr middle-left-coord) (cdr middle-right-coord)) 2)))
            (lh (ly:stencil-translate lh-cent middle-coord)))
       (display middle-coord)
     (ly:stencil-add
       orig arrow lh)))))


right = \repeat volta 2 { 
      \time 4/4
      r4 c'4-1 e'4 g'4| 
      \change Staff = "left"
      R1  
      \change Staff = "right"
      |  
      r4 c'4 e'4 g'4 | 
      s2 c'2-\tweak parent-alignment-X #CENTER ^\markup\smaller\smaller\italic\center-align "R.H." | R1 \bar "|."
    }
    
left = \repeat volta 2 { 
  \clef bass
      \phrasingSlurDashed
      \override PhrasingSlur.thickness = #0.6
      \override PhrasingSlur.stencil = #right-arrow-and-lh-over-to-slur
      \shape #'((-0.4 . 3) (-1 . 9) (0 . 4) (0.3 . 1.7)) PhrasingSlur
      c4_5^\( r4 r2 
      \change Staff = "right"
      c''1-\tweak Y-offset -1.5 -\tweak whiteout 1 _2\)-\tweak parent-alignment-X #CENTER _\markup\smaller\smaller\italic\center-align "L.H."
      \change Staff = "left"
      |  
      \shape #'((-0.4 . 3) (-1 . 9) (0 . 4) (0.3 . 1.7)) PhrasingSlur
      c4_5\( r4 r2 
      <<
        { \change Staff = "right"
          c''2\)-\tweak Y-offset -1.5 -\tweak whiteout 1 _2-\tweak parent-alignment-X #0.6 _\markup\smaller\smaller\italic\center-align "L.H."
          \change Staff = "left"
        }
        \new Voice R1
      >>
      c1-5
    }
    
\new PianoStaff <<
  \new Staff = "right" \right
  \new Staff = "left" \left
>>

which then results in something like this: