Dear David,
First of all, the following answer may be completely off the mark, so I
welcome anyone who corrects me.
I believe that this is due to the interesting way that Lilypond handles
checking for stanzas.
When you use "\set stanza = "1"", the "stanza" variable is continually
set. Lilypond makes sure to not print the stanza before every single
lyric by using a "last-stanza" variable and checking that they are not
the same using the scheme "eq?" procedure.
See:
https://github.com/lilypond/lilypond/blob/9f9243b9948ffaee93ff0551bbb3e36577139d8e/lily/stanza-number-engraver.cc#L61
Now, consider the following code:
% ------
\version "2.24.0"
#(define verse-number "1")
#(define verse-number2 "1")
#(display (eq? verse-number verse-number))
#(display (eq? verse-number verse-number2))
% ------
The scheme eq? procedure has very interesting logic about what things
are equal to each other, basically whether or not they are the same
object instead of being an equal value (scheme programmers are told to
use "equal?" instead).
I think that this is an intentional choice by the Lilypond devs, because
it allows us to set the stanza number at the beginning of each line
without having to change it.
However, I believe that your code is setting the stanza to the same
variable, which means that Lilypond does not recognize it as a different
value.
I'm not sure what I can offer as an alternative to avoid this, I will
think on this further.
-William
On 9/23/25 3:28 PM, David Poon wrote:
Hi,
I have no problems displaying stanza numbers on multiple systems, except
when I try to wrap the \set stanzacommand in a variable, it only
displays the first one.
In the MWE below, only the first stanza number is printed; but if you
uncomment
\set stanza = #"1"
the second one appears as I expected.
Why is this? (To be clear, I would /like/ to be able to display stanza
numbers on multiple (specific) systems.)
Thanks!
-David
\version "2.24.0"
verse = \set stanza = #"1"
text = \lyricmode {
\verse
One two
\verse
% \set stanza = #"1"
three
}
notes = { c' d' \break e' }
\score {
<<
\new Voice = "tune" { \notes }
\new Lyrics { \lyricsto "tune" \text }
>>
}
