Extenders and hyphens

In the last syllable of a word, melismata are sometimes indicated with a long horizontal line starting in the melisma syllable, and ending in the next one. Such a line is called an extender line, and it is entered as ‘ __ ’ (note the spaces before and after the two underscore characters).

Note: Melismata are indicated in the score with extender lines, which are entered as one double underscore; but short melismata can also be entered by skipping individual notes, which are entered as single underscore characters; these do not make an extender line to be typeset by default.

Centered hyphens are entered as ‘ -- ’ between syllables of a same word (note the spaces before and after the two hyphen characters). The hyphen will be centered between the syllables, and its length will be adjusted depending on the space between the syllables.

In tightly engraved music, hyphens can be removed. Whether this happens can be controlled with the minimum-distance (minimum distance between two syllables) and the minimum-length (threshold below which hyphens are removed) properties of LyricHyphen.

By default a hyphen is not repeated after a system break when the next line begins with a new syllable. Setting the after-line-breaking property to #t allows hyphens to be drawn in such situations.

See also

Internals Reference: LyricExtender, LyricHyphen.


LilyPond Notation Reference v2.25.22 (development-branch).