4.4.5 Scores and parts

In orchestral music, all notes are printed twice. Once in a part for the musicians, and once in a full score for the conductor. Variables can be used to avoid double work. The music is entered once, and stored in a variable. The contents of that variable is then used to generate both the part and the full score.

It is convenient to define the notes in a special file. For example, suppose that the file horn-music.ly contains the following part of a horn/bassoon duo

hornNotes = \relative {
  \time 2/4
  r4 f8 a | cis4 f | e4 d |
}

Then, an individual part is made by putting the following in a file

\include "horn-music.ly"

\header {
  instrument = "Horn in F"
}

{
 \transpose f c' \hornNotes
}

The line

\include "horn-music.ly"

substitutes the contents of horn-music.ly at this position in the file, so hornNotes is defined afterwards. The command \transpose f c' indicates that the argument, being \hornNotes, should be transposed by a fifth upwards. Sounding f is denoted by notated c', which corresponds with the tuning of a normal French Horn in F. The transposition can be seen in the following output

In ensemble pieces, one of the voices often does not play for many measures. This is denoted by a special rest, the multi-measure rest. It is entered with a capital ‘R’ followed by a duration (‘1’ for a whole note, ‘2’ for a half note, etc.). By multiplying the duration, longer rests can be constructed. For example, this rest takes 3 measures in 2/4 time

R2*3

When printing the part, multi-measure rests must be compressed. There is a music function available to do this:

\compressMMRests { … }

Applying this to hornNotes gives:

The score is made by combining all of the music together. Assuming that the other voice is in bassoonNotes in the file bassoon-music.ly, a score is made with

\include "bassoon-music.ly"
\include "horn-music.ly"

<<
  \new Staff \hornNotes
  \new Staff \bassoonNotes
>>

leading to

See also

Learning Manual: Organizing pieces with variables.

Notation Reference: Transpose, Writing parts, Full measure rests, Including LilyPond files.