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Stems

Whenever a note is found, a Stem object is created automatically. For whole notes and rests, they are also created but made invisible.

Stems may be manually placed to point up or down; see Direction and placement.

Predefined commands

\stemUp, \stemDown, \stemNeutral.

Selected Snippets

Default direction of stems on the center line of the staff

The default direction of stems on the center line of the staff is set by the Stem property neutral-direction.

\relative c'' {
  a4 b c b
  \override Stem.neutral-direction = #up
  a4 b c b
  \override Stem.neutral-direction = #down
  a4 b c b
}

Automatically changing the stem direction of the middle note based on the melody

LilyPond can alter the stem direction of the middle note on a staff so that it follows the melody, by adding the Melody_engraver to the Voice context.

The context property suspendMelodyDecisions may be used to turn off this behavior locally.

\relative c'' {
  \time 3/4
  a8 b g f b g |
  \set suspendMelodyDecisions = ##t
  a  b g f b g |
  \unset suspendMelodyDecisions
  c  b d c b c |
}

\layout {
  \context {
    \Voice
    \consists "Melody_engraver"
    \autoBeamOff
  }
}

See also

Notation Reference: Direction and placement.

Snippets: Editorial annotations.

Internals Reference: Stem_engraver, Stem, stem-interface.