3.3 Score is a single musical expression

In the previous section, How LilyPond files work, we saw the general organization of LilyPond input files. But we seemed to skip over the most important part: how do we figure out what to write after \score?

We didn't skip over it at all. The big mystery is simply that there is no mystery. This line explains it all:

A \score must begin with a single music expression.

You may find it useful to review Music expressions explained. In that section, we saw how to build big music expressions from small pieces – we started from notes, then chords, etc. Now we're going to start from a big music expression and work our way down.

\score {
  {   % this brace begins the overall music expression
    \new GrandStaff <<
      insert the whole score of a Wagner opera in here
    >>
  }   % this brace ends the overall music expression
  \layout { }
}

A whole Wagner opera would easily double the length of this manual, so let's just do a singer and piano. We don't need a GrandStaff for this ensemble, so we shall remove it. We do need a singer and a piano, though.

\score {
  {
    <<
      \new Staff = "singer" <<
      >>
      \new PianoStaff = piano <<
      >>
    >>
  }
  \layout { }
}

Remember that we use << and >> to show simultaneous music. And we definitely want to show the vocal part and piano part at the same time!

\score {
  {
    <<
      \new Staff = "singer" <<
        \new Voice = "vocal" { }
      >>
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto vocal \new Lyrics { }
      \new PianoStaff = "piano" <<
        \new Staff = "upper" { }
        \new Staff = "lower" { }
      >>
    >>
  }
  \layout { }
}

Now we have a lot more details. We have the singer's staff: it contains a Voice (in LilyPond, this term refers to a set of notes, not necessarily vocal notes – for example, a violin generally plays one voice) and some lyrics. We also have a piano staff: it contains an upper staff (right hand) and a lower staff (left hand).

At this stage, we could start filling in notes. Inside the curly braces next to \new Voice = vocal, we could start writing

\relative c'' {
  a4 b c d
}

But if we did that, the \score section would get pretty long, and it would be harder to understand what was happening. So let's use identifiers (or variables) instead.

melody = { }
text = { }
upper = { }
lower = { }
\score {
  {
    <<
      \new Staff = "singer" <<
        \new Voice = "vocal" { \melody }
      >>
      \new Lyrics \lyricsto vocal \new Lyrics { \text }
      \new PianoStaff = "piano" <<
        \new Staff = "upper" { \upper }
        \new Staff = "lower" { \lower }
      >>
    >>
  }
  \layout { }
}

Remember that you can use almost any name you like. The limitations on identifier names are detailed in File structure.

When writing a \score section, or when reading one, just take it slowly and carefully. Start with the outer layer, then work on each smaller layer. It also really helps to be strict with indentation – make sure that each item on the same layer starts on the same horizontal position in your text editor!

Other languages: French.