8.3.5 Aligning to cadenzas

In an orchestral context, cadenzas present a special problem: when constructing a score that includes a cadenza, all other instruments should skip just as many notes as the length of the cadenza, otherwise they will start too soon or too late.

A solution to this problem are the functions mmrest-of-length and skip-of-length. These Scheme functions take a piece of music as argument, and generate a \skip or multi-rest, exactly as long as the piece. The use of mmrest-of-length is demonstrated in the following example.

     
     cadenza = \relative c' {
       c4 d8 << { e f g } \\ { d4. } >>
       g4 f2 g4 g
     }
     
     \new GrandStaff <<
       \new Staff { \cadenza c'4 }
       \new Staff {
         #(ly:export (mmrest-of-length cadenza))
         c'4
       }
     >>