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I have encountered music in the wild where the primary voice is joined by a bunch of sub-voices. In this particular instance, this is notated as a set of chords, where the note head of the primary voice is in a normal font, but the note heads for the other voices are in a smaller font.

My solution is to make a scheme music function which modifies all chords that it is given such that the first pitch specified in the chord uses the normal font, and all other pitches are tweaked to use a font size two smaller.

Problems: This does not properly resize accidentals attached to the smaller note heads.

Sometimes chords with a stretched fingering are required. If not otherwise specified the context-property maximumFretStretch is set to 4, though. Resulting in a warning about "No string for pitch ..." and the note is omitted. You may set maximumFretStretch to an approppriate value or explecitely assign string-numbers to all notes of a chord.

There is no problem, just a solution ;-)

This is just a gimmick: a circle of fifths drawn with Lilypond.

Usage:

\QuiZi

or if you want to change size and position:

\markup \move-and-scale \QuiZi #0.8 #40

When dealing with live electronics notation, it's common to use circled numbers (with or without a description of the electronic effect) at the cue places. This type of notation is particularly common in pieces in which the instrumentalist uses a MIDI footpedal to activate events, though might be used in a wider context.

Syntax is \markup\circled-pattern #'radius #'angle #'repeat 'sign (or letter, or glyph)

[Note that recent LilyPond versions come with built-in woodwind diagram support.]

This snippet defines a new \clarTab markup command to draw tablatures for the clarinet.

The syntax is

\clarTab twelfthKey? holes keysByFinger

with

• twelfthKey?: a boolean: #t if the twelfth key is pressed, #f for low pitch

• holes: a list of closed holes represented by digit:

  • 0: for the thumb
  • 1, 2, 3: for the 3 holes of the left hand
  • 4, 5, 6: for the 3 holes of the right hand

  for example, #'(0 1 2 3) for the c'.

• keysByFinger: a list of pairs composed by the name of the finger and the note that this finger produce when presses the key.

  For example, the pair '("Llittle" . "cis") is the key pressed by the left little finger to make a cis. See note 5 below.

Here is a list of all strings for '(fingerName . noteName) pairs accepted (note that all altered notes are defined with a sharp):

• Rlittle: Right little finger. Associated note: "e" "f" "fis" "gis". See note 3-6.

• Llittle: Left little finger. Associated note: "e" "f" "fis" "cis". (note 6-7-8)

• Rfore: Right forefinger. Associated note: "dis" "fis" "ais" "b"

  "ees" and "bes" are allowed instead of "dis" and "ais")

  When you use "fis", the "dis" key is automatically pressed too, because the "fis" key is always used with the "dis" key (note 9-10).

• Lfore: Left forefinger. Associated note: "gis" "a"

  "gis" is automatically pressed when "a" is pressed.

• Rring: Right ring finger. Associated note: "b"

• Lring: Left ring finger. Associated note: "dis" ("ees" instead allowed).

To see all keys unpressed, specify a dummy value for the noteName, like in 13:

\clarTab ##t #'() #'(("Rlittle" . "") ("Llittle" . "")
                     ("Rfore" . "")("Lfore" . "")
                     ("Rring" . "")("Lring" . ""))

Eventually, you can specify the size of the clarinet tablature by writing at the begining of the .ly file:

clarTabScale = #x

By default x=1. Specifying other values multiplies the size by x.

Example: clarTabScale = #1.5

When changing the clef at the beginning of the first measure, Lilypond just changes the clef for the staff. This is how to keep the staff clef and add an extra clef after the time signature and before the first note.

When changing the clef at the beginning of the first measure, Lilypond just changes the clef for the staff. This is how to keep the staff clef and add an extra clef after the time signature and before the first note.

For critical editions, objects like clefs, key or time signatures sometimes need to be written in parentheses to indicate they are missing from the autograph. This can be achieved by simply wrapping the bracketify-stencil function around the object's stencil function. By using \once \override, the effect can be applied to just one clef/key/time signature; by using \override it applies to the whole piece.

The clef indicates which lines of the staff correspond to which pitches. The clef is set with the \clef command:

         { c''2 \clef alto g'2 }

Supported clefs include:

treble, violin, G, G2

G clef on 2nd line

alto, C

C clef on 3rd line

tenor

C clef on 4th line.

bass, F

F clef on 4th line

french

G clef on 1st line, so-called French violin clef

soprano

C clef on 1st line

mezzosoprano

C clef on 2nd line

baritone

C clef on 5th line

varbaritone

F clef on 3rd line

subbass

F clef on 5th line

percussion

percussion clef

tab

tablature clef

By adding _8 or ^8 to the clef name, the clef is transposed one octave down or up, respectively, and _15 and ^15 transposes by two octaves. The argument clefname must be enclosed in quotes when it contains underscores or digits. See the last two bars for an example.