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Note: New users are sometimes confused about accidentals and
key signatures. In LilyPond, note names are the raw input; key
signatures and clefs determine how this raw input is displayed.
An unaltered note like c means ‘C natural’,
regardless of the key signature or clef. For more information,
see Accidentals and key signatures.
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A sharp pitch is made by adding is
to the note
name, and a flat pitch by adding es
. As you
might expect, a double sharp or double flat
is made by adding isis
or eses
. This syntax is
derived from Dutch note naming conventions. To use other names
for accidentals, see Note names in other languages.
ais1 aes aisis aeses
A natural will cancel the effect of an accidental or key signature. However, naturals are not encoded into the note name syntax with a suffix; a natural pitch is shown as a simple note name:
a4 aes a2
Quarter tones may be added; the following is a series of Cs with increasing pitches:
ceseh1 ces ceh c cih cis cisih
Normally accidentals are printed automatically, but you may also
print them manually. A reminder accidental can be forced by
adding an exclamation mark !
after the pitch. A
cautionary accidental (i.e., an accidental within parentheses) can
be obtained by adding the question mark ?
after the
pitch. These extra accidentals can also be used to produce
natural signs.
cis cis cis! cis? c c c! c?
Accidentals on tied notes are only printed at the beginning of a new system:
cis1 ~ cis ~ \break cis
Preventing extra naturals from being automatically added
In accordance with standard typesetting rules, a natural sign is
printed before a sharp or flat if a previous accidental on the same
note needs to be canceled. To change this behavior, set the
extraNatural
property to "false" in the Staff
context.
\relative c'' { aeses4 aes ais a \set Staff.extraNatural = ##f aeses4 aes ais a }
Makam example
Makam is a type of melody from Turkey using 1/9th-tone
microtonal alterations. Consult the initialization file
makam.ly
(see the `Learning Manual 2.12.1,
4.6.3 Other sources of information' for the location of this file)
for details of pitch names and alterations.
% Initialize makam settings \include "makam.ly" \relative c' { \set Staff.keySignature = #`((3 . ,BAKIYE) (6 . ,(- KOMA))) c4 cc db fk gbm4 gfc gfb efk fk4 db cc c }
Music Glossary: sharp, flat, double sharp, double flat, Pitch names, quarter tone.
Learning Manual: Accidentals and key signatures.
Notation Reference: Automatic accidentals, Annotational accidentals (musica ficta), Note names in other languages.
Snippets: Pitches.
Internals Reference: Accidental_engraver, Accidental, AccidentalCautionary, accidental-interface.
There are no generally accepted standards for denoting quarter-tone accidentals, so LilyPond's symbol does not conform to any standard.