Thank you, all, for these helpful replies!

Kieren, your method works (and best of all, with it, \accidentalStyle
choral-cautionary works as desired). Hans, your code also works well. I
will keep both these approaches in mind.

I lean slightly toward Hans’s approach over Kieren’s, as it feels closer to
the experience of composing by hand in pencil/pen on manuscript paper:
“I’ve written out all the notes that go in this measure, so now I’ll draw a
bar line signaling its end,” without having to count the number of “quarter
note equivalents” and go back to the beginning of the measure and write a
\time command.

But, again, it’s good to have multiple options available to me for my
engraving projects. Thank you!

On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 at 18:09, Hans Aikema wrote:

> On 2 Dec 2025, at 17:39, Gabriel Ellsworth wrote:
>
> I am working on a psalm set to written-out Anglican chant, for which I use
> \cadenzaOn.
>
> I understand from reading previous threads that \bar commands simply add
> the visual appearance of a bar line. On the back end, as I gather, LilyPond
> does not treat a \bar event as a measure demarcation for the purposes of
> accidentals.
>
> This is causing problems in my score, as noted in the below MWE. Ideally,
> I’d like to use the choral-cautionary accidental style, but with LilyPond
> treating every barline as the end of a measure.
>
> For now, I have to use a bunch of exclamation marks and question marks to
> control accidental appearances manually. Is there a better way?
>
> My best idea right now is to “temporarily re-enable timing and use
> \partial to create a tiny measure” (see the documentation
> <https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.24/Documentation/notation/displaying-rhythms#unmetered-music>).
> But I’d prefer a solution that doesn’t require me to clutter up my code
> every time I come across some accidentals. Another option: In this message
> <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2013-03/msg01162.html>,
> Harm suggested \once \accidentalStyle forget. That works, except that I’d
> have to remember to do it in all places like the downbeat of “measure” 2. And
> it doesn’t include the smart parentheses of the -cautionary styles.
>
> Gabriel
>
> How about the following extended application of the very short partial
> measure with a silent rest as inspired by the documentation in
> https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.24/Documentation/notation/displaying-rhythms#Unmetered-music
> applied to your snippet.
>
> [image: AccidentalResetInCadenzas.png]
>
>
> %%% SNIPPET START
>
> \version "2.24.4"
>
> cadenzaSectionMeasure = {
>   \cadenzaOff
>   \partial 1024 s1024
>   \bar "||"
>   \cadenzaOn
> }
>
> cadenzaMeasure = {
>   \cadenzaOff
>   \partial 1024 s1024
>   \cadenzaOn
> }
>
> \relative c'' {
>     \key g \major
>     g1 aes4 ees4 g1 \cadenzaMeasure
>
>     ees1 % needs an accidental
>     f4 ees4 d4
>     aes'4 % needs an accidental
>     g1 \cadenzaSectionMeasure
>
>     fis1 e4 % both of these notes should have cautionary (parenthetical)
> accidentals
>     fis4 g1 \cadenzaMeasure
>
>     a1 % should have cautionary (parenthetical) accidental
>     f4 ees4 d4 fis4 g1 \fine
> }
>
> \layout {
>   \context {
>     \Score
>     \omit TimeSignature
>     \cadenzaOn  % unmetered music (disables automatic measure demarcation)
>   }
>   \context {
>     \Staff
>     \hide Stem
>     \accidentalStyle choral-cautionary
>   }
> }
>
> %%% SNIPPET END
>
>
>

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