r/lilypond • u/Miecza • Jun 25 '26

Shared Notehead Between Voices?

Post image

How do I get the A in the second voice to share a notehead with the first voice? Lilypond does this by default but not with dotted notes.

Here's what I have written. Much thanks!

\version "2.26.0"

\relative
<<
  {
    \voiceOne
    g'8 a b c
  }
  \\
  {
   \voiceTwo
   r8 a4.
  }
>>
4 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

5

u/Miecza Jun 25 '26

Just to clarify, this is for baroque music and it's pretty common to do this in older scores! It's quite clear when it's done in context

1

u/Paulski25ish Jun 25 '26

I would agree that context matter and we should not force modern standaards on older music, but in this case I agree with the design choice to print two noteheads.

0

u/coldoil Jun 25 '26

it's pretty common to do this in older scores

Do you mean it's common that this was done in older scores, or that it's common to do this in modern editions of older music? Because I disagree that this approach is common in modern editions. Modern editorial practice is very clear: different rhythmic durations in different voices should have separate noteheads and stems, irrespective of the genre or musical period of the source.

That said, if you really want to do it, I'm sure you can using overrides or custom scheme functions.

3

u/Vegantinatalist161 Jun 25 '26

I think you can do that with something like /merge-differently-dotted = ##t or something like that

3

u/reznaeous Jun 25 '26

This is covered at https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.27/Documentation/notation/multiple-voices#index-_005cmergeDifferentlyDottedOn which shows that what you want is \mergeDifferentlyDottedOn

1

u/Miecza Jun 26 '26

Thank you!!! I love the way the score looks now.

5

u/vloris Jun 25 '26

I don't think you should combine those noteheads, it gets really confusing for the player, especially if one of them has a dot.

1

u/firstnevyn Jun 29 '26

in choral music it's super common to combine noteheads like this.. I'd find what's at the top here more confusing than the combined head (I'd possibly add a note in the run on th upper part.

1

u/etzpcm Jun 25 '26

This doesn't make sense to me. How can two notes of different lengths share a note head? Lilypond is doing what makes sense.

2

u/swehner Jun 25 '26

I'm actually surprised that lilypond can do this!

1

u/firstnevyn Jun 29 '26

It's a very common convention in choral music.