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Ligatures

A ligature is a graphical symbol that represents at least two distinct notes. Ligatures originally appeared in the manuscripts of Gregorian chant notation to denote ascending or descending sequences of notes on the same syllable. They are also used in mensural notation.

Ligatures are entered by enclosing them in \[ and \]. Some ligature styles may need additional input syntax specific for this particular type of ligature. By default, the LigatureBracket engraver just puts a square bracket above the ligature.

     
     \transpose c c' {
       \[ g c a f d' \]
       a g f
       \[ e f a g \]
     }

[image of music]

Two other ligature styles are available: the Vaticana for Gregorian chant, and the Mensural for mensural music (only white mensural ligatures are supported for mensural music, and with certain limitations). To use any of these styles, the default Ligature_bracket_engraver has to be replaced with one of the specialized ligature engravers in the Voice context, as explained in White mensural ligatures and Gregorian square neume ligatures.

See also

Known issues and warnings

Ligatures need special spacing that has not yet been implemented. As a result, there is too much space between ligatures most of the time, and line breaking often is unsatisfactory. Also, lyrics do not correctly align with ligatures.

Accidentals must not be printed within a ligature, but instead need to be collected and printed in front of it.

The syntax still uses the deprecated infix style \[ music expr \]. For consistency reasons, it will eventually be changed to postfix style note\[ ... note\].

Other languages: français, español, deutsch.