4.3.8 Bar lines

Bar lines delimit measures, but are also used to indicate repeats. Normally, they are inserted automatically. Line breaks may only happen on barlines.

Syntax

Special types of barlines can be forced with the \bar command:

        c4 \bar "|:" c4

The following bar types are available:

     c4
     \bar "|" c
     \bar "" c
     \bar "|:" c
     \bar "||" c
     \bar ":|" c
     \bar ".|" c
     \bar ".|." c
     \bar "|."

For allowing linebreaks, there is a special command,

       \bar "empty"

This will insert an invisible barline, and allow linebreaks at this point.

In scores with many staves, a \bar command in one staff is automatically applied to all staves. The resulting bar lines are connected between different staves of a StaffGroup (lilypond-internals):

     << \context StaffGroup <<
       \new Staff { e'4 d'
          \bar "||"
          f' e' }
       \new Staff { \clef bass c4 g e g } >>
     \new Staff { \clef bass c2 c2 } >>

The command \bar bartype is a short cut for doing \property Score.whichBar = bartype Whenever whichBar is set to a string, a bar line of that type is created. At the start of a measure it is set to defaultBarType. The contents of repeatCommands are used to override default measure bars.

Property whichBar can also be set directly, using \property or \bar. These settings take precedence over the automatic whichBar settings.

You are encouraged to use \repeat for repetitions. See Repeats.

See also

Repeats.

The bar line objects that are created at Staff (lilypond-internals) level are called BarLine (lilypond-internals), the bar lines that span staves are SpanBar (lilypond-internals)s.

The barlines at the start of each system are SystemStartBar (lilypond-internals), SystemStartBrace (lilypond-internals), and SystemStartBracket (lilypond-internals). They are spanner objects and typically must be tuned from a \translator block.

This page is for LilyPond-2.0.3 (stable-branch). Report errors to <bug-lilypond@gnu.org>.