LilyPond Snippets

Rhythms 18
Changing beam knee gap
Kneed beams are inserted automatically when a large gap is detected between the note heads.
This behavior can be tuned through the auto-knee-gap property. A kneed beam is drawn if
the gap is larger than the value of auto-knee-gap plus the width of the beam object (which
depends on the duration of the notes and the slope of the beam). By default auto-knee-gap is
set to 5.5 staff spaces.
{
}
f8 f''8 f8 f''8
\override Beam #'auto-knee-gap = #6
f8 f''8 f8 f''8
Changing form of multi-measure rests
If there are ten or fewer measures of rests, a series of longa and breve rests (called in German
"Kirchenpausen" - church rests) is printed within the staff; otherwise a simple line is shown.
This default number of ten may be changed by overriding the expand-limit property.
\relative c'' {
\compressFullBarRests
R1*2 | R1*5 | R1*9
\override MultiMeasureRest #'expand-limit = #3
R1*2 | R1*5 | R1*9
}
2 5 9 2 5 9
Changing the time signature without affecting the beaming
The \time command sets the properties timeSignatureFraction, beatLength, beatGrouping
and measureLength in the Timing context, which is normally aliased to Score. Changing the
value of timeSignatureFraction causes the new time signature symbol to be printed without
changing any of the other properties:
\relative c'' {
\time 3/4
a16 a a a a a a a a a a a
% Change time signature symbol but keep 3/4 beaming
% due to unchanged underlying time signature
\set Score.timeSignatureFraction = #'(12 . 16)
a16 a a a a a a a a a a a
\time 12/16
% Lose 3/4 beaming now \time has been changed