6.5.1 Ties

A tie connects two adjacent note heads of the same pitch. The tie in effect extends the length of a note. Ties should not be confused with slurs, which indicate articulation, or phrasing slurs, which indicate musical phrasing. A tie is entered using the tilde symbol `~'

     
     e' ~ e' <c' e' g'> ~ <c' e' g'>

When a tie is applied to a chord, all note heads whose pitches match are connected. When no note heads match, no ties will be created. Chords may be partially tied by placing the tie inside the chord,

     
     <c~ e g~ b> <c e g b>

A tie is just a way of extending a note duration, similar to the augmentation dot. The following example shows two ways of notating exactly the same concept

Ties are used either when the note crosses a bar line, or when dots cannot be used to denote the rhythm. When using ties, larger note values should be aligned to subdivisions of the measure, such as

If you need to tie a lot of notes over bars, it may be easier to use automatic note splitting (see Automatic note splitting). This mechanism automatically splits long notes, and ties them across bar lines.

When a second alternative of a repeat starts with a tied note, you have to repeat the tie. This can be achieved with \repeatTie,

Commonly tweaked properties

Ties are sometimes used to write out arpeggios. In this case, two tied notes need not be consecutive. This can be achieved by setting the tieWaitForNote property to true. The same feature is also useful, for example, to tie a tremolo to a chord. For example,

     
     \set tieWaitForNote = ##t
     \grace { c16[~ e~ g]~ } <c, e g>2
     \repeat "tremolo" 8 { c32~ c'~ } <c c,>1
     e8~ c~ a~ f~ <e' c a f>2

Ties may be engraved manually by changing the tie-configuration property. The first number indicates the distance from the center of the staff in staff-spaces, and the second number indicates the direction (1=up, -1=down).

     
     <c e g>2~ <c e g> |
     \override TieColumn #'tie-configuration =
       #'((0.0 . 1) (-2.0 . 1) (-4.0 . 1))
     <c e g>~ <c e g> |

Predefined commands

\tieUp, \tieDown, \tieNeutral, \tieDotted, \tieDashed, \tieSolid.

See also

In this manual: Automatic note splitting.

Program reference: Tie.

Examples: input/regression/tie-arpeggio.ly input/regression/tie-manual.ly

Bugs

Switching staves when a tie is active will not produce a slanted tie.

Changing clefs or octavations during a tie is not really well-defined. In these cases, a slur may be preferable.

Other languages: French.