Because the flat extends higher above than below, and the sharp and natural do not, you can have a collision when you have a chord with a sharp above a flat. I suppose you have an inverse case too, if the sharp is below, of avoidance where there is no collision. BTW; Wouldn't it be better to have an ossia staff with the handbells? It's not like you have to engrave the whole thing twice, and it would be easier to read for sure. BTW; Who is this guy who writes wonderful songs but doesn't know what his own chords are? This (#) is the way Schott does reminder accidentals. The miniatures above the note are suitable only for textbooks, not for real music, because you mainly want to use reminders in crowded situations, where small ones are useless. It is unfortunate that some lazy b----- decided, relatively recently, that an accidental should not apply to subseqent notes of the same pitch at other octaves. In the stone age, before even I was born, one could # the lowest G, and it would apply to all the simultaneous and subsequent G's in the same measure, or all the higher ones, or all the ones on the same staff, or all the ones in the same voice, depending on whose book you read and when he wrote it. Even as late as the 50's, you could find this occasionally. (Mickey Baker, *Jazz Guitar*, book one.) Not good. But the *new* rule (100 years(?)) does not resolve the problem of a Bn and Bb, for example, in different voices, at the prime interval. (Obviously, ties make it a worse mess.) I consider it incorrect and substandard to leave any first instance of unaltered notes at the prime or octave from accidentals unmarked. I *never* leave one unmarked when I am handwriting something for others to read. I want lilypond to generate that (b) mark by default in every case of subsequent or simultaneous unaltered notes at the octave, or prime, from accidentals. (The prime situation actually arose in HVL, and this was Schott's solution.) It is *wrong* to make the reader have to depend on the rule, because in spite of how thoroughly prevalent the rule is, it breaks when there is an altered prime interval between two voices on the same staff. If you want a G# and a G in different parts at the same time, both notes *must* be marked with an accidental in the output, and if some of them correspond to the key signature they should be in parentheses in all cases. (I used to do it without parentheses myself, until I saw Schott's reminder (#), the only great idea they ever had that I know of.) I want to be able to do it this way, it is better for the reader, and it is the only way that I will willingly do it, ever. Simply sharping one of the F's in a chord in the input should generate reminders on all the F's that are not sharped, every time. I cannot even imagine any circumstance where this would not be desirable output, there is nothing even remotely incorrect about it according to anyone's rules, new or old, and it would give lilypond an advantage over *all* other notation software in user and reader friendliness. To summarize: * The rule is broken. * With reminders, you don't need a rule. I never imagined using the terms "unison" and "prime" to mean different things until I had to write this. :-) The use of reminders in subsequent measures should not be ruled out either, nor should the use of extra unneeded accidentals within a measure. They are often helpful to beginners, and I think that that should be a primary and even overriding consideration in lilypond, because most of the people are beginners. Of course I'm not talking default here, but I hope that this effort is not intended just for scholars at universities and concert performers. Bless you. :-) -- Peace, understanding, health and happiness to all beings! U U u ^^ ` 'U u U ''`'` _-__o|oO|o-_|o_o_-_MN[-->mm@_-_--___o|o|oU_|o_o__lilypond dave N Va USA David Raleigh Arnold [EMAIL PROTECTED]