6.2.3 Tuplets

Tuplets are made out of a music expression by multiplying all durations with a fraction

\times fraction musicexpr

The duration of musicexpr will be multiplied by the fraction. The fraction's denominator will be printed over the notes, optionally with a bracket. The most common tuplet is the triplet in which 3 notes have the length of 2, so the notes are 2/3 of their written length

     
     g'4 \times 2/3 {c'4 c' c'} d'4 d'4

Tuplets may be nested, for example,

\override TupletNumber #'text = #tuplet-number::calc-fraction-text
\times 4/6 {
  a4 a
  \times 3/5 { a a a a a }
}

Predefined commands

\tupletUp, \tupletDown, \tupletNeutral.

Commonly tweaked properties

The property tupletSpannerDuration specifies how long each bracket should last. With this, you can make lots of tuplets while typing \times only once, thus saving lots of typing. In the next example, there are two triplets shown, while \times was only used once

     
     \set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 4)
     \times 2/3 { c8 c c c c c }

For more information about make-moment, see Time administration.

The format of the number is determined by the property text in TupletNumber. The default prints only the denominator, but if it is set to the function tuplet-number::calc-fraction-text, num:den will be printed instead.

To avoid printing tuplet numbers, use

     
     \times 2/3 { c8 c c } \times 2/3 { c8 c c }
     \override TupletNumber #'transparent = ##t
     \times 2/3 { c8 c c } \times 2/3 { c8 c c }

Tuplet brackets can be made to run to prefatory matter or the next note

See also

Program reference: TupletBracket, TupletNumber, and TimeScaledMusic.

Examples: input/regression/tuplet-nest.ly.

Other languages: French.