14.1 Common notation for wind instruments (LilyPond Notation Reference)

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14.1 Common notation for wind instruments

This section discusses notation common to most wind instruments.

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14.1.1 References for wind instruments

Many notation issues for wind instruments pertain to breathing and tonguing:

Breathing can be specified by rests or Breath marks.
Legato playing is indicated by Slurs.
Different types of tonguings, ranging from legato to non-legato to staccato are usually shown by articulation marks, sometimes combined with slurs, see Articulations and ornamentations and List of articulations.
Flutter tonguing is usually indicated by placing a tremolo mark and a text markup on the note. See Tremolo repeats.

Other aspects of musical notation that can apply to wind instruments:

Many wind instruments are transposing instruments, see Instrument transpositions.
Slide glissandi are characteristic of the trombone, but other winds may perform keyed or valved glissandi. See Glissando.
Harmonic series glissandi, which are possible on all brass instruments but common for French Horns, are usually written out as Grace notes.
Pitch inflections at the end of a note are discussed in Falls and doits.
Key slaps or valve slaps are often shown by the cross style of Special note heads.
Woodwinds can overblow low notes to sound harmonics. These are shown by the flageolet articulation. See List of articulations.
The use of brass mutes is usually indicated by a text markup, but where there are many rapid changes it is better to use the stopped and open articulations. See Articulations and ornamentations and List of articulations.
Stopped horns are indicated by the stopped articulation. See Articulations and ornamentations.

14.1.2 Fingerings

All wind instruments other than the trombone require the use of several fingers to produce each pitch. Some fingering examples are shown in the snippets below.

Woodwind diagrams can be produced and are described in Woodwind diagrams.

Selected Snippets

Fingering symbols for wind instruments

Special symbols can be achieved by combining existing glyphs, which is useful for wind instruments.

lineup =
  \tweak outside-staff-padding #0
  \tweak staff-padding #0
  \tweak padding #0.2
  \tweak parent-alignment-X #CENTER
  \tweak self-alignment-X #CENTER
  \etc

\relative c' {
  g\open
  g\lineup ^\markup \combine
              \musicglyph "scripts.open"
              \musicglyph "scripts.tenuto"
  g\lineup ^\markup \combine
              \musicglyph "scripts.open"
              \musicglyph "scripts.stopped"
  g\stopped
}

Recorder fingering chart

The following example demonstrates how fingering charts for wind instruments can be realized.

% range chart for paetzold contrabass recorder

centermarkup = {
  \once \override TextScript.self-alignment-X = #CENTER
  \once \override TextScript.X-offset = #(lambda (g)
    (+ (ly:self-alignment-interface::centered-on-x-parent g)
       (ly:self-alignment-interface::x-aligned-on-self g)))
}

\score {
  \new Staff \with {
    \remove "Time_signature_engraver"
    \omit Stem
    \omit Flag
    \consists "Horizontal_bracket_engraver"
  }
  {
    \clef bass
    \set Score.timing = ##f
    f,1*1/4 \glissando
    \clef violin
    gis'1*1/4
    \stemDown a'4^\markup "1)"
    \centermarkup
    \once \override TextScript.padding = 2
    bes'1*1/4_\markup \override #'(baseline-skip . 1.7) \column
      { \fontsize #-5 \slashed-digit #0 \finger 1 \finger 2
        \finger 3 \finger 4 \finger 5 \finger 6 \finger 7 }
    b'1*1/4
    c''4^\markup "1)"
    \centermarkup
    \once \override TextScript.padding = 2
    cis''1*1/4
    deh''1*1/4
    \centermarkup
    \once \override TextScript.padding = 2
    \once \override Staff.HorizontalBracket.direction = #UP
    e''1*1/4_\markup \override #'(baseline-skip . 1.7) \column
      { \fontsize #-5 \slashed-digit #0 \finger 1 \finger 2
        \finger 4 \finger 5}\startGroup
    f''1*1/4^\markup "2)"\stopGroup
  }
}