LilyPond Snippets

Rhythms 43
This snippet shows a progression from traditional notation, to beams over the rest, to stemlets
over the rest, to stemlets alone. Stemlets are generated by overriding the 'stemlet-length
property of Stem, while rests are hidden by setting 'transparent = ##t.
Some \markup elements are included in the source to highlight the different notations.
\paper { ragged-right = ##f }
{
}
c'16^\markup { traditional } d' r f'
g'16[^\markup { beams over rests } f' r d']
% N.B. use Score.Stem to set for the whole score.
\override Staff.Stem #'stemlet-length = #0.75
c'16[^\markup { stemlets over rests } d' r f']
g'16[^\markup { stemlets and no rests } f' \once \override Rest #'transparent = ##t r d']
traditional
beams over rests stemlets over rests
Sub-dividing beams
stemlets and no rests
The beams of consecutive 16th (or shorter) notes are, by default, not sub-divided. That is, the
three (or more) beams stretch unbroken over entire groups of notes. This behavior can be modified
to sub-divide the beams into sub-groups by setting the property subdivideBeams. When
set, multiple beams will be sub-divided at intervals defined by the current value of beatLength
by reducing the multiple beams to just one beam between the sub-groups. Note that beatLength
defaults to one over the denominator of the current time signature if not set explicitly. It must
be set to a fraction giving the duration of the beam sub-group using the make-moment function,
as shown here:
\relative c'' {
c32[ c c c c c c c]
\set subdivideBeams = ##t
c32[ c c c c c c c]
}
% Set beam sub-group length to an eighth note
\set beatLength = #(ly:make-moment 1 8)
c32[ c c c c c c c]
% Set beam sub-group length to a sixteenth note
\set beatLength = #(ly:make-moment 1 16)
c32[ c c c c c c c]