Octaves are specified by adding '
and ,
to pitch names.
When you copy existing music, it is easy to accidentally put a pitch
in the wrong octave and hard to find such an error. The relative
octave mode prevents these errors: a single error puts the rest of the
piece off by one octave
\relative startpitch musicexpr
The octave of notes that appear in musicexpr are calculated as
follows: If no octave changing marks are used, the basic interval
between this and the last note is always taken to be a fourth or
less. This distance is determined without regarding alterations; a
fisis
following a ceses
will be put above the
ceses
.
The octave changing marks '
and ,
can be added to raise
or lower the pitch by an extra octave. Upon entering relative mode,
an absolute starting pitch must be specified that will act as the
predecessor of the first note of musicexpr.
Here is the relative mode shown in action
\relative c'' { b c d c b c bes a }
Octave changing marks are used for intervals greater than a fourth
\relative c'' { c g c f, c' a, e'' }
If the preceding item is a chord, the first note of the chord is used to determine the first note of the next chord
\relative c' { c <c e g> <c' e g> <c, e' g> }
The pitch after the \relative
contains a note name. To parse
the note name as a pitch, it must surrounded by \notes
The relative conversion will not affect \transpose
,
\chords
or \relative
sections in its argument. If you
want to use relative within transposed music, you must place an
additional \relative
inside the \transpose
.
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This page is for LilyPond-2.2.6 (stable-branch). |