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Fingering instructions

LilyPond provides two engravers for handling fingering instructions. In both cases, the fingering can be entered using the syntax ‘note-digit’.

• The first engraver is Fingering_engraver, which takes care of fingering instructions that are outside of chord constructs (i.e., outside of <...>). The order of fingering given in the input code is directly reflected in the output, and the fingering markup is always stacked vertically within a single column above or below the note or chord.

  \relative {
    c''4-1 d-2 f-4 e-3 |
    <g, b f' g>2_2_1^4^5 <g a c e>_2_1^3^5
  }
  

  

  If you want markup texts or strings for fingering, use the \finger command instead.

  \relative {
    c''4-1 d-2 f\finger \markup \tied-lyric "4~3" c\finger "2 - 3"
  }
  

  

• The second engraver is New_fingering_engraver, which handles fingering instructions, articulations, and harmonic note heads inside of chords (i.e., inside of <...>).

  \relative {
    <g'-1 b-2 f'-4 g-5>2 <e'-5 c-3 a-2 g-1>
  }
  

  

A thumb fingering can also be added (e.g., for cello music) to indicate that a note should be played with the thumb.

\relative { <a'_\thumb a'-3>2 <b_\thumb b'-3> }

Fingering instructions may be manually placed above or below the staff, see Direction and placement.

See the next section for snippet examples that demonstrate how to control the positioning of fingering instructions.

Selected Snippets

Controlling the placement of chord fingerings

The placement of fingering numbers can be controlled precisely by using the property fingeringOrientation. For fingering orientation to apply, the fingering command must be used within a chord construct (<...>), even for single notes. Orientation for string numbers and right-hand fingerings may be controlled in a similar way by using the properties stringNumberOrientation and strokeFingerOrientation, respectively.

These properties can be set to a list of one to three values. They control whether fingerings may be placed above (if up appears in the list), below (if down appears), to the left (if left appears), or to the right (if right appears). Conversely, if a location is not listed, no fingering is placed there. LilyPond takes these constraints and works out the best placement for the fingering of the notes of the following chords. Note that left and right are mutually exclusive – fingerings may be placed only on one side or the other, not both.

\relative c' {
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(left)
  <c-1 e-3 a-5>4
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(down)
  <c-1 e-3 a-5>4
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(down right up)
  <c-1 e-3 a-5>4
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(up)
  <c-1 e-3 a-5>4
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(left)
  <c-1>2
  \set fingeringOrientations = #'(down)
  <e-3>2
  \set stringNumberOrientations = #'(up left down)
  <f\3 a\2 c\1>1
  \set strokeFingerOrientations = #'(down right up)
  <c\rightHandFinger 1 e\rightHandFinger 2 c'\rightHandFinger 4 >
}

Allowing fingerings to be printed inside the staff

By default, vertically oriented fingerings are positioned outside the staff; that behavior, however, may be disabled. Attention needs to be paid to situations where fingerings and stems are in the same direction: by default, fingerings will avoid only beamed stems. That setting can be changed to avoid no stems or all stems; the following example demonstrates these two options, as well as how to go back to the default behavior.

\relative c' {
  <c-1 e-2 g-3 b-5>2
  \override Fingering.staff-padding = #'()
  <c-1 e-2 g-3 b-5>4 g'-0
  a8[-1 b]-2 g-0 r
  \override Fingering.add-stem-support = ##f
  a[-1 b]-2 g-0 r
  \override Fingering.add-stem-support = ##t
  a[-1 b]-2 g-0 r
  \override Fingering.add-stem-support = #only-if-beamed
  a[-1 b]-2 g-0 r
}

See also

Notation Reference: Direction and placement.

Snippets: Editorial annotations.

Internals Reference: FingeringEvent, fingering-event, Fingering_engraver, New_fingering_engraver, Fingering.