Previous: Scaling durations, Up: Writing rhythms


1.2.1.4 Ties

A tie connects two adjacent note heads of the same pitch. The tie in effect extends the duration of a note.

Note: Ties should not be confused with slurs, which indicate articulation, or phrasing slurs, which indicate musical phrasing. A tie is just a way of extending a note duration, similar to the augmentation dot.

A tie is entered using the tilde symbol ~

     
     e'2 ~ e'

[image of music]

Ties are used either when the note crosses a bar line, or when dots cannot be used to denote the rhythm. Ties should also be used when note values cross larger subdivisions of the measure:

[image of music]

If you need to tie many notes across bar lines, 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 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> ~ <c e g>
     <c~ e g~ b> <c e g b>

[image of music]

When a second alternative of a repeat starts with a tied note, you have to specify the repeated tie as follows:

     
     \repeat volta 2 { c g <c e>2 ~ }
     \alternative {
       % First alternative: following note is tied normally
       { <c e>2. r4 }
       % Second alternative: following note has a repeated tie
       { <c e>2\repeatTie d4 c } }

[image of music]

L.v. ties (laissez vibrer) indicate that notes must not be damped at the end. It is used in notation for piano, harp and other string and percussion instruments. They can be entered as follows:

     
     <c f g>1\laissezVibrer

[image of music]

The vertical placement of ties may be controlled, see Predefined commands, or for details, see Direction and placement.

Solid, dotted or dashed ties may be specified, see Predefined commands.

Predefined commands

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

Selected Snippets

Using ties with arpeggios

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, but in principle, it can also be used for ordinary consecutive notes, as demonstrated in this example.

     
     \relative c' {
       \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
       \tieUp c8~ a \tieDown \tieDotted g~ c g2
     }

[image of music]

Engraving ties manually

Ties may be engraved manually by changing the tie-configuration property of the TieColumn object. 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).

     
     \relative c' {
       <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>
     }

[image of music]

See also

Music Glossary: tie, laissez vibrer.

Notation Reference: Automatic note splitting.

Snippets: Rhythms.

Internals Reference: LaissezVibrerTie, LaissezVibrerTieColumn, TieColumn, Tie.

Known issues and warnings

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.

This page is for LilyPond-2.11.58 (development-branch).

Report errors to http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs.

Your suggestions for the documentation are welcome.

Other languages: français, español, deutsch.