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Node:A piano excerpt, Next:An orchestral score, Previous:More movements, Up:Tutorial
A piano excerpt
Our fourth subject is a piece of piano music. The fragment in the input
file is a piano reduction of the G major Sinfonia by Giovanni Battista
Sammartini. It was composed around 1740. It's in the source package
under the name sammartini.ly.
\include "paper16.ly"
stemDown = \property Voice.Stem \override #'direction = #-1
stemUp = \property Voice.Stem \override #'direction = #1
stemBoth = \property Voice.Stem \revert #'direction
viola = \notes \relative c' \context Voice = viola {
<c4-\f-\arpeggio g' c>
\stemDown g'8. b,16
s1 s2. r4
g
}
oboes = \notes \relative c'' \context Voice = oboe {
\stemUp s4 g8. b,16 c8 r <e'8.^\p g> <f16 a>
\grace <e8( g> <d4 )f> <c2 e>
\times 2/3 { <d8 \< f> <e g> <f a> }
<
{ \times 2/3 { a8 g c } \! c2 }
\context Voice = oboeTwo {
\stemDown
\grace {
\property Grace.Stem \override #'direction = #-1
[f,16 g] }
f8 e e2
}
>
\stemBoth
\grace <c,8( e> <)b8. d8.-\trill> <c16 e> |
[<d ( f> < )f8. a>] <)b,8 d> r [<d16( f> <f8. )a>] <b,8 d> r |
[<c16( e> < )e8. g>] <c8 e,>
}
hoomPah = \repeat unfold 8 \notes
\transpose c' { \stemUp c8 \stemBoth \stemDown c'8 \stemBoth }
bassvoices = \notes \relative c' {
c4 g8. b,16
\autochange Staff \hoomPah
\translator Staff = down
\stemDown [c8 c'8] r4
<g d'> r4
< {\stemUp r2 <e4 c'> <c8 g'> }
\context Voice = reallyLow {\stemDown g2 ~ | g4 c8 } >
}
\score {
\context PianoStaff \notes <
\context Staff = up < \time 2/2
\viola
\oboes
>
\context Staff = down < \time 2/2 \clef bass
\bassvoices
>
>
\midi { }
\paper {
indent = 0.0
linewidth = 15.0 \cm }
}
![[picture of music]](lily-480203204.png)
If this looks like incomprehensible gibberish to you, you are right. This example has been doctored to have as many quirks as possible.
As you can see, this example features multiple voices on one staff. To make room for those voices, their notes have to be stemmed in opposite directions.
Printed symbols are internally represented by so-called Graphical
Objects (more colloquially: Grobs). These statements concern the
grob called `Stem'. Each grob is described by a bunch of settings. These
setting determine the fonts, offsets, sub-routines to be called on the
grob, etc. The initial values of these settings are set in the Scheme
file scm/grob-description.scm.
stemDown = \property Voice.Stem \override #'direction = #-1
Set a property for all Stem grobs in the current Voice:
direction is set to -1, which encodes down. The setting
remains in effect until it is reverted.
\property Voice.Stem \revert #'direction
Revert the to the previous setting. The effect of precisely one
\stemDown or \stemUp is neutralized.
LilyPond includes the identifiers \stemUp, \stemDown along
with some other commonly used formatting instructions, but to explain how
it works, we wrote our own here. Of course, you should use predefined
identifiers like these if possible: then you will be affected less by
the implementation changes we occasionally make.
viola = \notes \relative c' \context Voice = viola {
In this example, you can see multiple parts on a staff. Each part is
associated with one notation context. This notation context handles
stems and dynamics (among others). The type name of this context is
Voice. For each part we have to make sure that there is
precisely one Voice context, so we give it a unique name
(`viola').
<c4-\f-\arpeggio g' c>The delimiters
< and > are shorthands for
\simultaneous { and }. The expression enclosed in
< and > is a chord.
\f places a forte symbol under the chord. The forte applies to
the whole chord, but the syntax requires that commands like forte and
arpeggio are attached to a note, so here we attach them to the first
note.
\arpeggio typesets an arpeggio sign (a wavy vertical line) before
the chord.
\stemDown
g'8. b,16Relative octaves work a little differently with chords. The starting point for the note following a chord is the first note of the chord. So the
g gets an octave up quote: it is a fifth above the starting
note of the previous chord (the central C).
s1 s2. r4
s is a spacer rest. It does not print anything, but it does have
the duration of a rest. It is useful for filling up voices that
temporarily don't play. In this case, the viola doesn't come until one
and a half measure later.
oboes = \notes \relative c'' \context Voice = oboe {
Now comes a part for two oboes. They play homophonically, so we
print the notes as one voice that makes chords. Again, we insure that
these notes are indeed processed by precisely one context with
\context.
\stemUp s4 g8. b,16 c8 r <e'8.-\p g> <f16 a>
\stemUp is a reference to the \property \override command
defined above.
\grace <e8 g> < d4 f> <c2 e>
\grace introduces grace notes. It takes one argument, in this
case a chord.
\times 2/3Tuplets are made with the
\times keyword. It takes two
arguments: a fraction and a piece of music. The duration of the piece
of music is multiplied by the fraction. Triplets make notes occupy 2/3
of their notated duration, so in this case the fraction is 2/3.
{ <d8 \< f> <e g> <f a> }
The piece of music to be `tripletted' is sequential music containing
three notes. On the first chord, a crescendo is started with
\<. To be precise, the crescendo start is syntactically attached
to the preceding note, the d.
<At this point, the homophonic music splits into two rhythmically different parts. We can't use a sequence of chords to enter this, so we make a `chord' of sequences to do it. We start with the upper voice, which continues with upward stems:
{ \times 2/3 { a8 g c } \! c2 }
The crescendo is ended at the half note by the escaped exclamation
mark \!.
\context Voice = oboeTwo {
\stemDown
We can't share stems with the other voice, so we have to create a new
Voice context. We give it the name oboeTwo to distinguish
it from the other context. Stems go down in this voice.
\grace {
When a grace section is processed, a Grace context is
created. This context acts like a miniature score of its own. It has
its own time bookkeeping, and you can make notes, beams, slurs
etc. Here we fiddle with a property and make a beam. The argument of
\grace is sequential music.
\property Grace.Stem \override #'direction = #-1 [f,16 g] }
Normally, grace notes are always stem up, but in this case, the upper voice interferes, so we set the stems down here.
As far as relative mode is concerned, the previous note is the
c'''2 of the upper voice, so we have to go an octave down for
the f.
f8 e e2 } >This ends the two-part section.
\stemBoth \grace <c,8( e> <)b8. d8.-\trill> <c16 e> |
\stemBoth ends the forced stem directions. From here, stems are
positioned as if it were single part music.
The bass has a little hoom-pah melody to demonstrate parts switching between staffs. Since it is repetitive, we use repeats:
hoomPah = \repeat unfold 8The unfolded repeat prints the notes in its argument as if they were written out in full eight times.
\notes \transpose c' {
Transposing can be done with \transpose, which takes two arguments.
The first specifies what central C should be transposed to. The second
is the to-be-transposed music. As you can see, in this case, the
transposition has no effect, as central C stays at central C.
The purpose of this no-op is circumventing relative mode. Relative mode
can not be used together with transposition, so \relative will
leave the contents of \hoomPah alone. We can use it without
having to worry about getting the motive in a wrong octave.
bassvoices = \notes \relative c' {
c4 g8. b,16
\autochange Staff \hoomPah
Voices can switch between staffs. The easiest way to get this, is to use
\autochange. This command looks at the pitch of each note, and if
necessary, will cross to the other staff. For this to work, the two
staffs must be called "up" and "down".
\translator Staff = downWe want the remaining part of this melody on the lower staff, so we do a manual staff switch here.
\context Voice = reallyLow {\stemDown g2 ~ | g4 c8 } >
After skipping some lines, we see ~. This mark makes ties. Note
that ties and slurs are different things. A tie can only connect two
note heads of the same pitch, whereas a slur can connect many chords
with one curve.
\context PianoStaffA special context is needed to get cross staff beaming right. This context is called
PianoStaff.
\context Staff = bottom < \time 2/2 \clef bassThe bottom staff must have a different clef.
indent = 0.0To make some more room on the line, the first (in this case the only) line is not indented. The line still looks very cramped, but that is due to the page layout of this document.
Please send GNU LilyPond questions and comments to lilypond-user@gnu.org.
Please send comments on these web pages to lilypond@packages.debian.org
Copyright (c) 1997--2001 Han-Wen Nienhuys and Jan Nieuwenhuizen.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.