One thought: At least with keyboard music, what you have is a "transient voice" that isn't a true voice, but just appears for a brief time and then fades away. Maybe we could use a single voice, and flag the transient voice with something like a '+' to mean "Add this to the voice". The recent example then might look like:
[V:1] | A2 E2 G2 A2 | A B c d e f g a | g2 f2 e2 a2 |] [V:1+]| | A A A A A A A A | [V:1+]| | A G F E D C B, A,|
The [V:1+] notation would mean to add these into the previous staff as part of V:1. You could use | as much as needed to get the bars aligned correctly, as is done in w: lines to skip to the next bar.
Would this solve the problem? It would take a bit of work to implement, but probably no more than the '&' approach. I think it could be made a lot more readable, too, as this simple example shows. In most cases, I suppose you would only need one such extra line, to add in the notes that are difficult to put in the [V:1] line.
OK, but what I was trying to get a reaction to initially was allowing whatever syntax triggers overlays of notes to similarly trigger an overlay in the corresponding lyrics in the w: line. I am currently up against this limitation in abcm2ps trying to typeset a choral piece where there are the four SATB parts through the entire piece, but only in the last three or four measures the bass part splits into bass I and bass II, with slightly different rhythms for the lyrics.
John F.
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