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Pitches

The verbose syntax for pitch specification is

  \pitch scmpitch

scmpitch is a pitch scheme object, see Pitch data type.

In Note and Chord mode, pitches may be designated by names. The default names are the Dutch note names. The notes are specified by the letters a through g (where the octave is formed by notes ranging from c to b). The pitch c is an octave below middle C and the letters span the octave above that C.

In Dutch, a sharp is formed by adding -is to the end of a pitch name and a flat is formed by adding -es. Double sharps and double flats are obtained by adding -isis or -eses. aes and ees are contracted to as and es in Dutch, but both forms are accepted.

LilyPond has predefined sets of note names for various other languages. To use them, simply include the language specific init file. For example: \include "english.ly". The available language files and the names they define are:

                        Note Names               sharp       flat
nederlands.ly  c   d   e   f   g   a   bes b   -is         -es
english.ly     c   d   e   f   g   a   bf  b   -s/-sharp   -f/-flat
deutsch.ly     c   d   e   f   g   a   b   h   -is         -es
norsk.ly       c   d   e   f   g   a   b   h   -iss/-is    -ess/-es
svenska.ly     c   d   e   f   g   a   b   h   -iss        -ess
italiano.ly    do  re  mi  fa  sol la  sib si  -d          -b
catalan.ly     do  re  mi  fa  sol la  sib si  -d/-s       -b

For polyphonic music, it can be convenient to specify the rest position directly. You can do that by entering a note, with the keyword \rest appended, e.g. Rest collisions will leave these rests alone.

a'4\rest d'4\rest

The optional octave specification takes the form of a series of single quote (`'') characters or a series of comma (`,') characters. Each ' raises the pitch by one octave; each , lowers the pitch by an octave.

  c' c'' es' g' as' gisis' ais'

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Copyright (c) 1997--2001 Han-Wen Nienhuys and Jan Nieuwenhuizen.

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