8.1.2 Text spanners

Some performance indications, e.g., rallentando or accelerando, are written as text and are extended over many measures with dotted lines. Such texts are created using text spanners; attach \startTextSpan and \stopTextSpan to the first and last notes of the spanner.

The string to be printed, as well as the style, is set through object properties

     
     c1
     \textSpannerDown
     \override TextSpanner #'edge-text = #'("rall " . "")
     c2\startTextSpan b c\stopTextSpan a
     \break
     \textSpannerUp
     \override TextSpanner #'edge-text = #(cons (markup #:italic "rit" ) "")
     c2\startTextSpan b c\stopTextSpan a

Predefined commands

\textSpannerUp, \textSpannerDown, \textSpannerNeutral.

Commonly tweaked properties

To print a solid line, use

\override TextSpanner #'dash-fraction = #'()

See also

Program reference: TextSpanner.

Examples: input/regression/text-spanner.ly.