The placement of fingering numbers can be controlled precisely by using the property fingeringOrientation. For fingering orientation to apply, the fingering command must be used within a chord construct (<...>), even for single notes. Orientation for string numbers and right-hand fingerings may be controlled in a similar way by using the properties stringNumberOrientation and strokeFingerOrientation, respectively.
These properties can be set to a list of one to three values. They control whether fingerings may be placed above (if up appears in the list), below (if down appears), to the left (if left appears), or to the right (if right appears). Conversely, if a location is not listed, no fingering is placed there. LilyPond takes these constraints and works out the best placement for the fingering of the notes of the following chords. Note that left and right are mutually exclusive – fingerings may be placed only on one side or the other, not both.