Melismata - GNU LilyPond
Description: GNU LilyPond

Next: Another way of entering lyrics, Previous: The Lyrics context, Up: Vocal music

#### 7.3.5 Melismata

The `\lyricsto` command detects melismata: it only puts one syllable under a tied or slurred group of notes. If you want to force an unslurred group of notes to be a melisma, insert `\melisma` after the first note of the group, and `\melismaEnd` after the last one, e.g.,

>          <<
>            \new Voice = "lala" {
>              \time 3/4
>              f4 g8
>              \melisma
>              f e f
>              \melismaEnd
>              e2
>            }
>            \new Lyrics \lyricsto "lala" {
>              la di __ daah
>            }
>          >>

In addition, notes are considered a melisma if they are manually beamed, and automatic beaming (see Setting automatic beam behavior) is switched off.

A complete example of a SATB score setup is in section Vocal ensembles.

##### Predefined commands

`\melisma`, `\melismaEnd`

##### See also

Program reference: Melisma_translator.

`input/regression/lyric-combine-new.ly`.

##### Bugs

Melismata are not detected automatically, and extender lines must be inserted by hand.

This page is for LilyPond-2.8.8 (stable-branch).

Other languages: English.
Using automatic language selection.