7.3.10 Ambitus

The term ambitus denotes a range of pitches for a given voice in a part of music. It may also denote the pitch range that a musical instrument is capable of playing. Ambits are printed on vocal parts, so performers can easily determine it meets their capabilities.

Ambits are denoted at the beginning of a piece near the initial clef. The range is graphically specified by two note heads that represent the minimum and maximum pitch. To print such ambits, add the Ambitus_engraver to the Voice context, for example,

\layout {
  \context {
    \Voice
    \consists Ambitus_engraver
  }
}

This results in the following output

If you have multiple voices in a single staff and you want a single ambitus per staff rather than per each voice, add the Ambitus_engraver to the Staff context rather than to the Voice context. Here is an example,

     
     \new Staff \with {
       \consists "Ambitus_engraver"
     }
     <<
       \new Voice \with {
         \remove "Ambitus_engraver"
       } \relative c'' {
         \override Ambitus #'X-offset = #-1.0
         \voiceOne
         c4 a d e f2
       }
       \new Voice \with {
         \remove "Ambitus_engraver"
       } \relative c' {
         \voiceTwo
         es4 f g as b2
       }
     >>

This example uses one advanced feature,

\override Ambitus #'X-offset = #-1.0

This code moves the ambitus to the left. The same effect could have been achieved with extra-offset, but then the formatting system would not reserve space for the moved object.

See also

Program reference: Ambitus, AmbitusLine, AmbitusNoteHead, AmbitusAccidental.

Examples: input/regression/ambitus.ly.

Bugs

There is no collision handling in the case of multiple per-voice ambitus.